
'^ 



The Community Capitol 



THE COMMUNITY 
CAPITOL 

A Program for American Unity 



M. CLYDE KELLY 

Member of Congress from Pennsylvania 
Author of "Machine-Made Legislation" 



With Illustrations from Photographs 



PITTSBURGH 
the MAYFLOWER PRESS 

1921 
All Rights Reserved 



V 






Copyright, 1921 
By The Mayflower Press 

Copyright, 1921 
By M. Clyde Kelly 

Published April, 1921 




i\?R 13 1921 



g)CU6ll584 



Foreword 

There are among us Americans all the sorts 
that Kipling's composite describes — the *^ sham- 
bling'' and the ** blatant," the ** cringing" and 
the ** careless," the *' panic-blinded," the ** en- 
slaved, illogical, elate," and perhaps there is 
something of all those qualities in each of us. 
But there is also that American — that typical 
embodiment of the American spirit — to whom 
the lines apply: 

* ' He turns a keen untroubled face 
Home, to the instant need of things." 

More than any other that I know, M. Clyde 
Kelly — farmer boy, school teacher, newspaper 
editor, municipal reformer, state legislator, and 
now United States Congressman chosen by the 
nearly unanimous vote of his district — is that 
American. 

And straight past the accidents of birth and 
income, of sex and age, of party and creed, — by 
means of this book M. Clyde Kelly challenges 
precisely that capacity in each of us which he 
himself typifies; the capacity for intelligently 
facing **the instant need of things," and for 
perfecting and using the instrumentality at 



Foreword. 



hand by which we — all of us, in our home neigh- 
borhoods — may participate in dealing effec- 
tively with the problems, political, economic, 
social, by which we as neighbors, members of 
America, earth-dwellers, are confronted. 

The engine of liberty, the machine of democ- 
racy — The Community Capitol — ^whose con- 
struction and use is the theme of this book, is 
concretely, the combination of the public school 
equipment established as neighborhood head- 
quarters of authoritative citizen expression, 
and the postal service fully developed as the 
agency of national and finally world-wide co- 
operation. 

The two elements of this institutional union 
are as familiar as if they were really two per- 
sons in each American neighborhood ; the public 
school — a precise, forbidding maiden, very re- 
spectable, very good, and — very lonesome; the 
postal service, a bachelor, busy, traveling con- 
stantly, not showing sentiment, but beneath the 
business exterior — yearning for the creative- 
ness of love and the home fireside to start out 
from and to come back to. 

And these two have been written about, and 
criticized, and lauded, and generally discussed 
— separately, as though they were two unmar- 
ried persons of opposite sex. But never before 
has the perfect naturalness, the filling out for 



Foreword. 7 

each of what the other lacks, the creativeness, of 
their union been seen and set forth. 

This is the great new message of this book. 

The construction and use of this perfected 
instrument of democracy, coordinated of the 
public school and the postal service, is, however, 
presented not at all as an institutional romance, 
but as a practical, common-sense, engineering 
proposition, with plans, specifications, argu- 
ments as substantial and solid as cobble-stones 
for the testing of educational, political and so- 
cial technicians. (And, by the way, it may be 
well to remind those of us community organi- 
zation experts who may be inclined to ask: 
'^What competence has a nonprofessional com- 
munity person for writing on * The Community 
CapitoPf that the man who designed the 
United States capitol, of which the architecture 
is the best in America, was not a professional 
architect.) 

But just as every living thing is not some- 
thing else than a machine ; but a machine plus 
something else — that mysterious something else 
that we call *4ife''; and as every right mar- 
riage union of a maid and a man is more than a 
law-defined contract, so this coordination of 
these two institutions, the neighborhood-uniting 
public school and the world-integrating postal 
system, means more than the mechanical equip- 



8 Foreword. 

ment of the citizenship for political and eco- 
nomic control. It means also that mysterious 
something else, that has to do with the liberat- 
ing of the creative impulse, that may be defined 
as making the world of the neighborhood and 
finally the neighborhood of the world feel more 
like home. 

E. J. Waed, 

Specialist in Community Organization^ 
United States Bureau of Education. 

Washington, D. C, March 15, 1921, 



Contents 

Page 
FOEEWORD 5 

Part I. The Fellowship of the Folks 15 

Part II. Back of the Ballot — and Be- 
yond 71 

Part III. Food Products from Farm to 

Pantry 129 

Part IV. Peoples Banks and People's 

Homes 193 

Part V. The One Big Union — America 235 

Part VI. Making Strangers Members of 

America 285 



Illustrations 

The First Community Capitol . . . .Frontispiece 

The Birthplace of the Republican Party . . 33 

The Beginning of the Community Capitol . 49 

Decision Through Common Counsel 65 

The Emancipation of the Ballot Box 81 

Studying the Problem 97 

Finding the Answer 113 

From Producer to Consumer 129 

The Motor Truck ''Over There'' 145 

The Termini of the Daily Run 171 

The First Educator-Postmaster 187 

Finding the ''Merry" in America 193 

Drama: "Of, By, and for the People" .... 209 

The Community Center Inspires the school 225 

Celebrating "Inter-Dependence Day" .... 231 

"Above All Nations, Humanity" 256 



11 



Part I 
The Fellowship of the Folks 



I. 

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FOLKS. 

Democracy is a whole people getting together 
for happiness. As a nation America under- 
stands the theory of democracy, but as individ- 
uals, we do not practice it. We can die for 
democracy across the seas but we have not been 
able to live democracy at home. The brother- 
hood that was to save us has been divided by all 
the bigotries of caste, race, creed, and party. 
Following such division have come misunder- 
standing, hatred, greed and ignorance, while 
great numbers of Americans find life *^ weary, 
stale, flat and unprofitable. ' * 

The stark individualism, which has been the 
bone and sinew of our Americanism, served the 
common good, perhaps, in the day of the 
pioneer: it means destruction in this day of 
possession and development. When the land 
was a virgin wilderness and an unbounded do- 
main stretched before the men at Plymouth 
Rock and Jamestown, each individual was 
forced to provide for himself and defend him- 
self. The law of the wilderness was supreme. 
Men were compelled to match their strength and 

15 



16 The Community Capitol. 

cunning against savage beasts and savage men 
of the forests, and woe to the man who could not 
cope with his enemies. 

That was the time and the man described by 
Kipling in his * * Foreloper. ' ' 

'* The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind wave 

break in fire, 
He shall fulfill God's utmost will, unknowing his 

desire. 
And he shall see old planets pass and alien stars 

arise. 
And give the gale his reckless sail, in shadow of new 

skies. 
Strong lust of gear shall drive him forth and hunger 

arm his hand. 
To wring his food from deserts nude, his foothold 

in the sand. 
His neighbor's smoke shall vex his eyes, their voices 

break his rest. 
He shall go forth till South and North, lie sullen 

and dispossessed. 
He shall come back o'er his own track and by his 

scarce cool camp. 
There shall he meet the roaring street, the derrick 

and the stamp. 
For he shall blaze a nation's ways with hatchet and 

with brand. 
Till on his last won wilderness, a people's empire 

stands. ' ' 

That day has long since passed. The wilder- 
ness has been conquered. The prairie has seen 
seed time and harvest. On every mountain top 
and land's-end, there is a sign, ^^ Private Prop- 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 17 

I erty, No Trespass.'^ There is no longer any 
] farther West. We have come back on ourselves 
and the problems which follow upon the continu- 
ous smoke from the dwellings of neighbors, and 
the unceasing sound of their voices, must be met 
with finality, here and now. 

' The Ishmael-like philosophy of ^^ every man 
, for himself/' if carried further in America will 
inevitably destroy our society. Carried to its 
' logical conclusion, it would compel every Amer- 
, ican who desires to triumph in this jungle-war- 
fare to make the boast of one of the old kings of 
Spain, who lay dying. The priest attending 
him reminded the monarch that he had led a life 
of bloodshed and admonished him that as he was 
about to appear before his Creator, he should 
use his last moments to forgive his enemies and 
seek their forgiveness. ^^My enemies, '^ said 
the dying tyrant, ^^I have no enemies. I have 
killed them all. ' ' 

Manifestly such a gentle consummation is im- 
possible, so the very law of self-defense must 
force us, if we are to survive, to get together on 
the basis of ''all for each, each for all, and all 
together for the common good.'' In so far as 
we have failed to do so, we have lost contact 
with happiness, which is the true touchstone of 
democracy. 



18 The Community Capitol. 

When Confucius was asked by his disciples to 
put into one sentence the philosophy of life and 
progress, he replied that it is all contained in 
one word — ^ ^ Reciprocity. ' ^ It is a true word 
for to-day in America. There must be oppor- 
tunity for individual freedom, for individual 
responsibility and progress, for without these 
the essence of Americanism disappears. But 
we must learn the all-important lesson that, 
while each American is an individual unit, he is 
at the same time a member of the American 
community. 

For fifty years we have devoted our best 
energies to the construction of machinery, by 
which iron and steel and other materials work 
together for a common purpose. Our supreme 
accomplishment in such power development is 
the turbine engine, which drives the mighty 
battleships of Uncle Sam's Navy. It has been 
a development from the one and two and 
multiple cylinder engines, to the turbine, with 
14,000 and more little blades, adjusted in such a 
way that every vibration of every blade adds to 
the power of the whole. 

Now we must turn to the development of 
machinery by which folks may work together 
for the common happiness and welfare. The 
turbine furnishes the principle and the task is 
the adjustment of each individual so that the 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 19 

maximum of efficient power may be generated 
through the combined efforts of all. 

This can only be done by giving Americans 
the sense of belonging to America, of being vital 
parts of one great organism. The nation, as a 
^^ common aggregate of living identities, must 
be placed on one universal, common platform. ' ' 
There must be an all-inclusive organization of 
the people, so that they may get together, as in- 
dividuals, not as groups, for the common counsel 
which is essential for the discovery of the com- 
mon interest. 

If people are to get together, there must be a 
place of meeting, where they may gather as 
neighbors, members of the community. Only 
by mingling with each other, on a common 
level, can people come to know each other and 
out of such knowledge, agree upon a common 
purpose. 

School Distkict Tkue Unit of Neighborhood. 

The unit of neighborhood in America is the 
public school district. The entire nation is 
divided into these natural communities, and in 
the center of each is a public building, owned by 
all the people, regardless of all lines of class 
and creed and partisanship and income. To 
them everybody comes by right and from them 
nobody is excluded. 



20 The Community Capitol. 

The school house is the one true answer to 
the demand for a meeting place, where by asso- 
ciation on a common level, the sense of equality 
may be realized, and where in the power and 
happiness of touching elbows, Americans may 
banish the thousand and one divisive lines of 
danger. In the very beginnings of our national 
life, the public school house was regarded as a 
pillar of the Eepublic. The system of public, 
common schools is the one institution America 
has given the world. Thomas Jefferson, author 
of the Declaration of Independence, was the first 
president of the School Board of the District of 
Columbia, a position he accepted while he was 
President of the United States. Among his 
letters is found his message of acceptance, in 
which he expresses his sense of honor in assum- 
ing a position in the American public school 
system and promises to attend the meetings of 
the board. Now, we can return to that source 
of liberty, undefiled, and use it for modern 
needs. 

* ' The little old drab school is gone, 

Its spirit must not go. 
The power it gave in other days, 

We need, far more, to know. 
Heavy the tasks that call our hands. 

Divided strengths are small. 
Uniting here for common things, 

Each finds the might of all." 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 21 

The public school plant represents the largest 
single investment of the people's money. 
America has invested in school buildings the sum 
of $1,983,508,818, and expends every year for 
their operation $736,678,089. Sadly enough that 
tremendous plant is being operated only seven 
hours a day for 181 days in the year. 

To make this great, nation-wide system of 
public buildings available for the people's com- 
munity headquarters, all that is necessary is to 
assert the actual ownership, open the doors and 
throw back the shutters so that all those in the 
community who choose may come in and make 
such use of their own buildings as they desire. 

There are 276,827 school districts in America. 
However, 195,400 of these are really parts of 
the real unit, the township or other subdivision, 
which has its school board. In many places 
there are seven to fifteen little one-room school 
houses in a single township and the average at- 
tendance is from eight to twelve pupils. There 
should be but one adequate building in these 
districts and the remarkable growth of the idea 
of consolidated schools proves that the people 
are recognizing that fact. Instead of having a 
small school within walking distance of a few 
farms, the people of such sections are uniting 
with the people of the entire neighborhood and 
are erecting large, modern buildings, where 



22 , The Community Capitol. 

competent instructors are employed. It means 
that from 150 to 500 pupils are given superior 
advantages and the population of the school 
district ranges from 750 to 2,500. 

The United States Bureau of Education states 
that there are 50,000 communities in America, 
including consolidated school districts in rural 
sections and the present school districts in the 
cities. 

Forty-three states now have laws authorizing 
the expenditures of public funds for the trans- 
portation of children to school buildings provid- 
ing that the children live outside a reasonable 
walking distance. Experience in every state has 
proved that the consolidation of rural schools 
not only makes possible better educational facil- 
ities, but actually reduces expenses. The con- 
solidated school is the rural school of to-morrow. 
The progress of this movement to place the 
school building in the center of the neighbor- 
hood, simplifies the organization of all America 
into assemblies, for 50,000 community associa- 
tions will make a chain of brotherhood, reach- 
ing from coast to coast, and including every 
American in its span. 

Of all the projects which are being urged to- 
day for the solution of our problems and the 
promotion of American happiness, there is none 
which promises such certain success as this 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 23 

common sense plan of diffusing the light of 
counsel and conference throughout the entire 
community by means of regular neighborhood 
assemblies. The establishment of a regularly 
organized community center in the public school 
will increase public virtue and elevate public 
morals and add more than any other one thing 
to the sum of individual and social well being. 
Only through neighborly cooperation and mu- 
tual help can the individual be fitted to-day to 
fulfill the duties each owes to himself, to his 
community and to his country. 

School House a Community Building. 

The school house is a community building be- 
cause of the community of its ownership. 
Every resident of the community, either directly 
or indirectly, pays taxes for its erection and its 
maintenance. Such common ownership is es- 
sential for any real community purpose. Many 
cities and towns have recently erected separate 
community buildings through private contribu- 
tions or have inaugurated drives to secure 
funds for such buildings. These are not com- 
munity buildings ; they are simply club houses 
for groups of the people, where generally the 
largest contributors have the greatest influence, 
while those who gave nothing have nothing to 
say. 



24 The Community Capitol. 

The citizen who is the largest taxpayer in the 
community has one vote in the control of the 
public school; so has the citizen who pays his 
taxes to his landlord. Each citizen has an equal 
share, simply by virtue of his residence in the 
community. The school building is, therefore, 
the one possible agency for unified organization 
of the people of the United States. It stands 
ready, waiting to be used for this supreme serv- 
ice, in every neighborhood throughout the 
nation. 

When the Pilgrims hit upon the plan of tax- 
ing all the property of the community for the 
support of free schools, it was the first time in 
the history of the world that this principle was 
suggested. They builded wiser than they knew, 
for they have made these buildings the property 
of the people and it is perfectly legitimate that 
people use their own buildings for their own 
meetings for social, recreational and other pur- 
poses when the school children are not occupy- 
ing them. 

Such use will fulfill the vision of the founders 
of the public school system in America. Many 
and grievous have been the charges of ineffi- 
ciency levelled at the public schools. Although 
we are spending two million dollars every day 
on their upkeep, careful observers gravely point 
out that they have failed. Dr. Charles W. 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 25 

Eliot, of Harvard College, for instance, says 
that '^ compared with what was hoped from the 
establishment of the common school, this most 
important of our institutions has been a fail- 
ure." 

Dr. Eliot declares that the public school sys- 
tem has failed to remedy misgovernment, dis- 
sipation and idling, and cleavage and class feel- 
ing in our citizenship. Another writer states 
that he questioned thousands of young Amer- 
icans on their way to and from school to learn 
their ideals of Americanism. The all prevail- 
ing idea among these school pupils was that an 
American is one who makes money and makes it 
fast. This observer is convinced that the Amer- 
ican birthright to these young minds was simply 
a get-rich-quick opportunity. 

Surely no one shall fail to understand that 
the public school building, simply as an educa- 
tion-center for the child, cannot meet all these 
needs and remedy all evils. The public school 
for the child must be a place of monarchy, a place 
of training in obedience. Instruction is handed 
down from above. But good citizenship is 
vastly more than obedience ; it is the knowledge 
of responsibility, the active participation in the 
government. The art of right living can never 
be mastered save in cooperation with equals. 
No school, or college, or university has this 



26 The Community Capitol. 

most important of all the arts of life in its cur- 
riculum. It can be won only in the ceaseless 
contacts of community life, organized for effec- 
tive expression ; in the study of men and women 
in their best moods in association with their 
neighbors. 

Misgovernment, dissipation and idling, class 
spirit and the putting of the rule of gold above 
the Golden Rule, can be banished only when the 
public school building is made a community 
civic-center for adults as well as an education- 
center for children. Then men will have prac- 
tice in the great business of getting along with 
fellowmen. Then men will be able to analyze 
motives and weigh rewards and to be set free 
from shams and false standards, through knowl- 
edge of the Truth. 

Instead of being a mere incident to com- 
munity life, this distinctive American institu- 
tion must be made the center of it. Instead of 
being only a printed pattern on the social fabric, 
it must be ingrained in it. 

"The starting point of every good, 
Of larger Hf e, is Neighborhood. ' ' 

To multiply and strengthen such sources of 
education as community assemblies is the wisest 
patriotism, for while they make citizens to know 
their rights, at the same time they enforce their 
obligations to society. Under the organization 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 27 

of the adults may be formed a Young People's 
I League, including in its membership the youth 
from sixteen to twenty years of age. In the 
actual practice of community citizenship they 
will gain knowledge of the fact that rights and 
duties in America go hand in hand, better than 
; through any number of educational courses in 
school or college. In this way democracy may 
become a habit of life in the young people who 
are just forming their life habits and it will be 
fulfillment of the ideals back of the public school 
system. 

Of course the use of the school buildings as 
community centers is based upon the fact that 
the people are sovereign over these buildings 
and have an unqualified right to use them as 
they desire. It is unfortunately true that many 
times, because of lack of effective organization 
boards of education have usurped the people's 
collective authority. They have often regarded 
themselves as owners, instead of agents and 
have felt competent to lay down laws for the 
very people who elected them to be trustees and 
nothing more. 

The School Belongs to the Citizens. 

As trustees, the boards of education have 
been justified in refusing to admit any right on 
the part of any special group to use the school 



28 The Community Capitol. 

building and they have rightly made such use a 
matter of permission, to be decided by them-i 
selves. The school house does not belong to 
groups, it belongs to the citizenship, made up of 
the individuals in the community. But the re- 
fusal of any board of education to permit the 
whole community to use its own property as it 
desires, is an instance of servants giving orders 
to their masters ; it is an intolerable usurpation 
of authority. 

The simple statement of the situation should 
be conclusive as to the right of the whole com- 
munity to get together in their own school build- 
ing for anything which it occurs to them to do. 
But decades of abdication of rightful power on 
the part of the people, simply because they were 
not organized to exert that power, makes neces- 
sary a reaffirmation of that fundamental right. 

There have been many instances like that 
which occurred in the city of Washington, in 
1918. There the people of the school district 
community organized for the use of their own 
school building. In the course of their organ- 
ized activities, they decided to hold a certain 
meeting on a Sunday afternoon. This decision 
was vetoed by the Board of Education, which 
gravely declared that it would not permit the 
use of the school building on Sunday. 

The issue was joined, not at all primarily, on 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 29 

dhe merits of the question as to propriety of 
meeting on Smiday, but on the wider issue as 
I to whether or not the community had the right 
jto use the school building how and when it de- 
sired. The one question was that of final au- 
thority — Which held the power of decision, the 
lorganized community or the Board of Educa- 
tion? In Washington City, this issue was de- 
cided by the Act of Congress, asserting the 
right of the people to decide as to the use of 
their public school buildings. 

The same conflict of authority has been wit- 
nessed in other states and it has been decided 
by similar legislation in several states of the 
Union. Laws of many other states affirm the 
right of the people to use school buildings, aside 
from school hours, ^^for the purpose of meeting 
and discussing any and all subjects, which in 
their judgment may appertain to the educa- 
tional, political, economic, artistic, and moral 
[interests of the citizens.'' 

In numerous communities in other states, the 
f people have not waited for any legislative enact- 
iment, but have organized to use their school 
buildings as community centers. The average 
Aboard of education, when composed of elected 
( officials, wishes no test of supremacy with its 
creator, the people. The simple process of de- 
feating directors who so abuse their office is 



30 The Community Capitol. 

sufficient and where necessary has proved ade- 
quate remedy. The efficiency of any public 
official who would undertake to refuse to permit 
the principal, whose agent he is, full use of his 
own property, would be on a par with the cook, 
who applied for a place and who, when asked for 
reference, presented the following : * ' To whom 
it may concern: This is to certify that Nora 
Foley has worked for us for one week and we 
are satisfied. '^ 

Autocratic control of the school buildings of 
America must be changed to democratic control 
and there might well be an affirmation on the 
statute books of every state that the organized 
citizenship of the community have an inherent 
right to use their o^vn school buildings in which 
to talk about the things that ought to be talked 
about and to do the things which ought to be 
done. 

Doughboys in a Gekman High School. 

It can be done whenever America wills it. 
In Coblenz, Germany, shortly after the armi- 
stice, I saw the Kaiser Wilhelm High School 
transformed into a place for the education and 
recreation of American doughboys and on sev- 
eral occasions I watched a German band playing 
with great intensity, for their edificatioUj the 
Star-Spangled Banner. After accomplishing 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 31 

such transformation, it should be child's play 
to the American people to make their own school 
ji buildings subject to their own control, as centers 
I of community development. 

It is important to recognize the. fact that no 
right to use the public school buildings inheres 
in any clique or group or part of the people. 
Therefore the first essential in any community 
organization making this building its headquar- 
ters is an all-inclusive organization. In every 
organization using the term community, it must 
be a fundamental principle that every citizen 
is a member by virtue of his residence in the 
community. Then it matters little how many 
attend any certain meeting if the doors are open 
to all who choose to attend. 

Under the community organization, any 
groups or clans may use the building by com- 
munity permission, but no partisan or private 
group of any kind ought to be allowed to use 
the public school building except by the invita- 
tion of neighbors whose community home it is. 
That is the home development, so needed in 
America; the group control is the method, in 
Eooseveltian phrase, of the ^^ polyglot boarding 
house.'' 

This organization must be as wide as Amer- 
ican citizenship. To gain admission to its fra- 
ternity must require no ritual and no dues. By 



32 The Community Capitol. 

virtue of his citizenship and his residence in the 
community, the individual is a member and no 
power may require other qualification. This is 
the fellowship of folks in America, and under no 
pretext may any of the folks be excluded. 

I contend that the inalienable rights of man, 
specified and implied in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, are in reality, but one, — the right of 
a man to his place in the American brotherhood. 
To-day, beneath all our strenuous rushing and 
pushing, our hustle and bustle, there is a pro- 
found lonesomeness. Why is it! Because of 
the vision of brotherhood, pointed out in that 
same Declaration, but which has been unful- 
filled. It will continue to haunt us until per- 
formance overtakes promise. 

The right to live is more than the privilege of 
breathing. It is the right to live the life of a 
human being and that is fulfilled only in mutual 
cooperation and assistance. 

The right to liberty is more than keeping out 
of chains. It is the right to the service of fel- 
low men, which is the highest freedom. 

The right to pursue happiness is more than 
the mere privilege of selfish comfort. It is 
right to be a member of the nation, to have a 
part in the nation's work and in promoting the 
common good. 

The democracy of the Declaration of Inde- 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 33 

pendence is the keystone in the arch of Amer- 
icanism. If that soul-stirring, red-blooded 
declaration of American unity, pledged with life 
and fortune and sacred honor, means anything 
at all, it means that every American has a right, 
not simply to live in America, but to live in the 
fellowship of his brother Americans. 

There is a denial of that right where there is 
no opportunity for Americans to get together 
with their neighbors in the interrelationship 
which is as essential to communal health, as is 
the coordination of cells and parts of the body 
to bodily health and well being. In both cases, 
practice is essential to efficient use. The child 
is born without skill in the use of its hands, but 
continual practice trains them to the mastery of 
a hundred arts. So in the practice of coopera- 
tion comes efficiency, while the command of 
Nature, ^^use or lose'' is of full effect in social 
relations as well as in the physical world. 

There is the same denial of this fundamental 
right of all Americans when some part of the 
community organizes and excludes other citi- 
zens, no matter what qualifications may be set 
up. It is depriving some citizens of their right 
to access to the channels of sympathy and com- 
munication and self expression. There is a 
cruel wrong done the excluded persons and 



34 The Community Capitol. 

there is no community life in the part which ex- 
cludes others. 

It is astonishing to see the number of organi- 
zations which are springing up in America, 
styling themselves '^community" organizations, 
when they have no right whatever to use the 
term. They lay down hard and fast rules for 
membership, prescribe dues and deliberately ex- 
clude certain parts of the community. They are 
select membership clubs and nothing more, and, 
however worthy in themselves, should not be 
permitted to pretend falsely to be community 
associations. 

There are Boards of Trade, Chambers of 
Commerce and other special-interest groups, 
which now term themselves ^' community^' or- 
ganizations simply because a newly changed 
clause in the constitution says all American 
citizens are eligible to membership. Then, by 
exacting large dues and by meeting in private 
quarters, where group control is assured, they 
nullify the open-door policy and remain simply 
and solely a group association. 

Those at the head of these masquerading 
clubs generally denounce the ignorance and in- 
difference of the average citizen, who refuses to 
rush headlong into their enticing web. But, in 
reality, the general refusal of the people to join 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 35 

these so-called '^community'' ventures is a 
tribute to their intelligence. 

Citizenship the Supreme Club Membership. 

The people see behind the mask. They know 
the spirit and the purpose which actuates these 
enthusiasts for getting-together to advance the 
interests of the few, first, last, and all the time. 
They know that the constitution of any real 
community organization must carry substan- 
tially this clause: ^'All citizens of the United 
States, 21 years of age or over, residing in this 
community, are members of this association.'' 
The people know that citizenship is the supreme 
club membership and there has been no lack of 
enthusiastic support wherever there has been 
an honest effort to establish, in the people's 
house and under the people's control, a com- 
munity center, where every citizen with the will 
to try democracy, enters his place by right and 
not by sufPrance. 

There is not a community in the United States 
where this same success cannot be attained. I 
have seen organization aif ected where the neigh- 
borhood was split with feuds and misunder- 
standings. The first meeting would find little 
knots of people gathered together in the school 
room, glowering at each other, suspicious that 
some advantage would be seized. But as the 



36 The Community Capitol. 

meeting's continued, with equal opportunity to 
each individual, and all decisions by majority 
vote, after full discussion, I have seen the won- 
der of mutual understanding conquering mutual 
suspicion and dislike. In these community 
centers there have been scores of activities 
worked out successfully, where before organiza- 
tion, they would have been impossible. 

The fact is that American communities are 
very similar, after all. A man moved to an- 
other community because he was convinced that 
his neighbors were the meanest people on earth. 
On his way to his new home he talked to an old 
philosopher and told him his reason for chang- 
ing his residence. Said the old man, ^ ^ They are 
just as bad, or worse, where you are going. '* 
And they were. Soon after another man passed 
the old philosopher and told him that he was 
moving to this community in order to have bet- 
ter school facilities for his children and that it 
grieved him to leave his old home because he 
had the kindest neighbors in the world. Said 
the old man, ''You'll find them just as kind 
where you are going. ' ' And he did. It was the 
same community ; it was the spirit which made 
the difference. 

The public school building and an all-inclusive 
membership: these are two fundamental prin- 



I 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 37 

ciples if the people of America are to get to- 
gether for the common happiness and welfare. 

But these are not all. The people, gathered 
in the school house must be efficiently organized, 
else there is simply a helpless crowd. 

Of course, every officer will be elected directly 
by the people, or the whole idea of democratic 
organization fails. Elections by boards of di- 
rectors or self-appointed leaders, mean control 
elsewhere than in the body of the people. There 
should be a primary election where every mem- 
ber may vote for his first choice. Then by elim- 
inating, for the final election, all save those who 
receive the highest number of votes, the choice 
of the majority is assured. 

The one officer, above all others in importance, 
is the community secretary. This office is one 
which is destined to become the most honorable 
in every community. The community secretary 
will be the responsible servant of the people, 
the embodiment of the will of the community. 
He will be the greatest servant of the com- 
munity and thus will have the highest office. 

In early efforts to organize themselves, com- 
munities elected the secretary, with the other 
officers, as a volunteer worker, who would assist 
in the community activities, but with no special 
responsibilities in looking after details of 
arrangements under the direction of the com- 



38 The Community Capitol. 

munity. Every member was equally respon- 
sible in looking after the work necessary to suc- 
cessful organization. 

Eveeybody's Business — and Nobody's. 

The result proved again the truth of the old 
adage, ^'What is everybody's business is no- 
body's business." Meeting time found no ar- 
rangements for the program decided upon; 
plans failed of execution because this volunteer 
service went unperformed. It was the same 
trouble as in all civic and social welfare needs, 
through the lack of organization itself, when it 
is everybody's business to attend to these duties 
and ends by being nobody's. The arch offender 
in both cases is Nobody. 

I am to blame, I am Nobody. 
The town, you say, is dead and who 's to blame ? 
No welcome is there here, and who 's to blame ? 
Your Hves, you say, are bleak, and who's to blame? 
Your leaders lack support, and who 's to blame ? 
The things that should be done are left undone. 
It's everybody's business, so it's mine, 
I am Nobody. 

Out of this experience came recognition of the 
need of a community secretary to act as the re- 
sponsible agent of the people in their use of 
their community house, such definite service. to 
be paid for by the whole community. 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 39 

The importance of this office is shown by the 
section dealing with the community secretary 
in the constitution adopted by the Mount Joy 
township community, in Adams county, Penn- 
sylvania. 

^'It is the duty of the community secretary to 
serve as the agent of the citizens of the United 
States residing in this township and constitut- 
ing the membership of this association, in offi- 
cially communicating with and receiving official 
communications from national, state, and county 
representatives and administrators, and in pre- 
paring for market and dispatching or ordering 
and receiving commodities for residents of this 
township as this association may direct: to 
serve as the clerk in connection with and at such 
community meetings as this association may 
direct to be called; inviting and arranging for 
the coming of such public officials, candidates 
for public office, or other speakers as the asso- 
ciation may desire to hear: seeing that the 
school building is open and in readiness for each 
community meeting or other gathering ar- 
ranged by or under the auspices of this associa- 
tion: being responsible to the board of school 
directors for assuring the observance of the 
board's regulations established to forward the 
rightful and prevent the improper use of public 
school property. Keeping a correct roll of 



40 The Community Capitol. 

members and a complete record of attendance, 
topics considered, principal speakers and action 
taken at each commmiity meeting: to serve as 
custodian of all books, pamphlets, charts, pic- 
tures and other informational and exhibit ma- 
terial belonging to, or loaned to, or to be 
acquired by this association: catalog-uing the 
same so as to facilitate its eifective and proper 
use, and making available for signing such nom- 
inating or other petitions, subscription rolls, 
lists of positions vacant, applications for em- 
ployment or other lists, forms or files as the 
association may direct or the public need re- 
quire to be compiled or kept: to serve as the 
executive of this association in arranging for 
such occasional or special programs, lectures, 
exhibits, entertainments, celebrations, festivals, 
and commemorations as this association may 
direct: in organizing and directing the social 
and recreational activity of the youth and chil- 
dren of the township as this association may 
direct: and in managing whatever tax main- 
tained cooperative enterprises a» may be estab- 
lished or authorized to be conducted in, or in 
connection with the public school building: to 
serve as supervisor of such dramatic, literary, 
or other special group organizations, societies, 
clubs or classes as may be formed under the 
auspices of this association or authorized to 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 41 

meet in this school building: and at all times 
and in every way to seek to assure a proper co- 
ordination and harmony between the instruc- 
tional use of the public school property for the 
children and its use by the older members of the 
community. ' ' 

This outline of legitimate community activi- 
ties proves both the vital importance of the 
community secretary and the tremendous possi- 
bilities of proper organization of communities. 
There is no authority over the people given to 
the community secretary, but he acts directly 
under their instructions as did the old town 
clerk in the New England town meetings. 

These old town meetings are impossible. 
Skyscrapers have blotted out the village greens 
and hurrying traffic beats over the commons. 
But, in city and town alike, we may win back the 
old spirit of neighborhood and common life and 
common action by efficient organization of the 
communities, with democratically elected, pub- 
licly paid officials to serve under the people ^s 
direction. 

It was the position of community secretary, 
in essence, which was held by Daniel Webster, 
in Fryburg, Maine. He was employed as prin- 
cipal of the academy there and was given a 
salary of $350 per year. He had planned to use 
the money received for the tuition of himself 



42 The Community Capitol. 

and his brother, Ezekiel, at college. It was the 
same brother who was the immortal helper of 
Daniel. Their father found it necessary to re- 
proach both boys for their listless performance 
of certain farm duties. He questioned Daniel, 
* * What have you been doing all day V^ * ^ Noth- 
ing, sir,'^ was the truthful response. ^^And 
you, Zeke, what have you been doing!'' asked 
the irate parent. **I have been helping Dan- 
iel," answered Zeke. 

On this occasion, however, Daniel desired to 
help Zeke. But the salary was not sufficient for 
him to carry out his desire, if any of it were 
spent for living expenses. In this quandary, 
Daniel insisted that he be given an opportunity 
to earn enough additional money to provide for 
food, room rent and other expenses. He was 
accordingly made assistant town clerk, with 
duties through which he could earn $2 a week. 
As school principal he was over the children, 
and in his other position he was under the adults 
of the community, a coupling up process, which 
was of vital advantage to all. 

The incident shows that even in that early 
period, the school teacher was often compelled 
to supplement his salary by outside employ- 
ment. Webster did it through a position in the 
community organization. To-day, the school 
teachers are still the neglected safeguards of 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 43 

our democracy, and $2 a week would be of prac- 
tically no assistance in combatting the high cost 
of living. But the answer to the problem is the 
same to-day as in Daniel Webster's time. 
Where the school teacher or a principal is 
chosen as community secretary by the people, 
he becomes the same vital link between children 
and adults in the use of the school building. It 
opens the way for an adequate income for school 
teachers in many communities, for the duties of 
community secretary are not to be considered 
as extra efforts, but as a distinct service to be 
properly compensated by the community. 

Mount Joy township community elected A. 
Nevin Sponsellor, teacher in one of the town- 
ship schools, as community secretary. He re- 
ceived $250 a year as public school teacher and 
as community secretary and postal agent he was 
paid $300 a year additional. His income was 
more than doubled by the combination of his 
duties as instructor of the children with his 
duties as public servant of the community. 

Community Secketaky Is Pivotal Peeson. 

The community secretary is the pivotal per- 
son in community organization. The name it- 
self means ^ ^ one who is intrusted with secrets. ' ' 
The person who possesses the community's se- 
crets is always and necessarily a man of power. 



44 The Community Capitol. 

If he knows the evil secrets of the people, the 
things which men fear to have known publicly, 
he is a power for evil. The political boss makes 
it his sinister business to know every failing 
and wrongful act of those with whom he deals 
and thus he makes cowards and cravens out of 
men. Governor Sulzer, of New York, was de- 
stroyed by Tammany because of this power, 
after having elevated him to high office. The 
man with dark spots in his life must of necessity 
serve the possessor of his evil secrets or meet 
destruction. 

Instead of these holders of evil secrets, we 
need secretaries of goodness, possessors of good 
secrets. Men have secret strengths, and fine- 
nesses and noble qualities. The community 
secretary is a man hired to search out these hid- 
den nobilities even as the ^'boss'' digs for evil 
facts. 

In every community, yes, in every individual, 
there are reservoirs of undeveloped capacity 
needing only the channels of opportunity to ex- 
ert their influence for good. The saddest 
tragedy in the world is the life confined to shal- 
lows, when it is meant for the deeps of human 
existence, when there are '^empires in the 
brain.'' After all, it is the opportunity that 
makes the man show his real qualities. 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 45 

In the terrible struggle in Argonne wood, the 
cook of a certain unit had prepared food and 
sent it to the soldiers in the front lines, but it 
was destroyed by shell fire. Knowing the needs 
of his ^ ^ boys ' ' he prepared a treat by combining 
all the remaining materials into hot hash in 
readiness for their return. As the time of their 
coming approached, he sent a K. P. to tell the 
boys of the feast which awaited them. Their 
approach was soon signalled but the cook could 
not wait. He ran to bring the good news in 
person. Fifty yards he ran and then a high 
explosive shell burst at his feet, tearing off both 
legs. His assistant ran to him. ^^ Don't mind 
me, ' ' he whispered as he died, ^ ^ run back and see 
that the boys' hash don't burn!" 

It is the community secretary's task to dis- 
cover and help to harness these unknown heroic 
qualities. It is part of the community organi- 
zation itself to give effective opportunity for 
their expression, in the advancement of the hap- 
piness and welfare of the individual community 
and nation. 

This office is a public position and the com- 
pensation must come from public funds. ^ ^ Who- 
ever pays the fiddler, calls the tune." If any 
person or group of persons pays the salary of 
such official, in the end they dictate action. 
America has had too much of such management 



I 



46 The Community Capitol. 

from above : what is needed now is enlightened 
control by the people. 

It is by taxation, the use of community power 
to raise funds from all alike, that the salaries of 
these public servants must be paid. Private 
financing violates the community idea, for no 
private interests must be allowed to prejudice 
popular sovereignty. Almost inevitably, pri- 
vate and personal interest in such cases, out- 
weigh the community good. Too many of us 
are like the Irishman, whose wife was about to 
die, and who had summoned all her relatives 
about her bedside. She called her husband to 
her and said, *^When I am dead, don't forget to 
collect the $2 that Murphy owes us for eggs.'' 
*^I'll attend to it, Bridget," he replied. After 
a little pause she called to him again and said, 
''And don't forget to collect that $4 that O'Neil 
owes us for milk and butter." ''I'll attend to 
that, too," said the husband and addressing 
himself to the assembled friends, he said with 
emphasis, "Hear the woman, will you, sensible 
to the very last." The wife grew weaker and 
finally called him to her a third time and said, 
"And when I am dead, don't forget to pay that 
$30 we owe the corner grocer." "Hear the 
woman raving, will you, hear her raving, ' ' cried 
the husband. 

When any private power outweighs com- 



M 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 47 

munity control, anything which advances pri- 
vate interest will generally be regarded as 
. ** sensible" action while interference with pri- 
vate advantage will be ^^ raving/^ 

To-day, there are various incorporated socie- 
ties, generally financed in New York, which 
maintain corps of highly paid organizers and 
executive secretaries to build local units and 
federate them into national organisms under 
the name of community service, of one variety 
or another. Appeals are made for popular con- 
tributions, on the profession of such activities 
as separate club houses, forums, recreation 
grounds, etc. The funds raised are expended 
under autocratic control, and permanent secre- 
taries are named and retained by the few, while 
the people have no voice either in their selection 
or retention. These are in no sense community 
organizations and have no right whatever to the 
name. 

In the city of Washington early in 1920, one 
of these societies began a drive for $83,500. 
The merits of this organization as compared 
with the democratically organized community 
centers in the public school buildings, were 
brought before a joint committee of the Wash- 
ington Board of Trade and Chamber of Com- 
merce. 

Lengthy and detailed hearings were held and 



48 The Community Capitol. 

exhaustive investigation made of both types of 
organization. In the end, these two business 
bodies flatly refused to recommend financial 
support for the privately owned and managed 
service, but paid a high tribute to the com- 
munity centers in the public schools. 

Their report pointed out that $55,000 of the 
quota desired by the private organization was 
to be used for salaries for previously chosen 
employes. The report concludes : — 

*'The Board of Trade and Chamber of Com- 
merce do not hesitate to commend the com- 
munity centers in the school buildings to favor- 
able consideration and general support of all 
the people and urge them to be active in pro- 
moting the work of the centers located in their 
respective neighborhoods. We urge Congress 
to increase the annual appropriation for the use 
of this splendid community work." 

Communities form the public and their work 
is public work. It is a disgrace to America 
when any private agency whatever undertakes 
the leadership in providing means by which 
communities may come together to promote 
effectively the public good. Unless all of us 
pay the price in dollars gathered through the 
tax office, we must pay a far greater price, even 
in dollars and cents, through loss of unified ac- 
tion in preventing exploitation by the organized 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 49 

few who thrive on special privileges. Any pri- 
vate financing" of the community interest is a 
contradiction in terms, while the attempt to do 
so shames the community. 

^^To Restoke the School To Its Teue Place." 

As Edward J. Ward, community specialist in 
the United States Bureau of Education, and the 
leading authority on community organization in 
the country, has well said: 

^^The community center is not to be a chari- 
table medium for the service of the poor. It is 
not to be a new kind of evening school. It is not 
to take the place of any church or other institu- 
tion of moral uplift. It is not to serve simply 
as an improvement association' in which the 
people of a restricted community seek only the 
welfare of their local district. It is not to be a 
* civic reform' association pledged to some 
change in city or state or national administra- 
tion. It is just to be the restoration in its true 
place in social life of that most American of all 
institutions, the public school, in order that 
through the extended use of the common school 
equipment, may be developed, in the midst of 
our complex life, the community interest, the 
neighborly spirit of real democracy. ' ' 

Such a purpose is public in the highest degree. 
It is the realization of the dreams of the f ound- 

4 



50 The Community Capitol. 

ers of this nation as the greatest adventure in 
democracy. Its scope may be seen in the pro- 
posed program of the Community Organization 
Board, a District of Columbia association char- 
tered for the developing of the community 
center movement. The opening paragraphs are : 

**The purpose of this board is to promote the 
development of local communities into little 
democracies, with public school houses as their 
Capitols. 

*^We conceive that from such fundamental, 
all-inclusive community organization the bene- 
fits of democracy will flow, such as assuring self- 
development of the individual through mutual 
counsel and assistance; affording practice in 
citizenship; providing the means for direct 
dealing between organized producers and con- 
sumers ; supplying the method for coordinating 
all government activities in direct contact with 
the public; giving aliens and naturalized citi- 
zens, as well as native-born the sense of belong- 
ing to America; making more effective an 
enlightened public opinion; advancing a social 
order in harmony with collective conscience of 
the nation, thus, making the phrase, ^We, the 
people ' a spiritual and visible fact. ' ' 

The fifty thousand communities of America, 
thus organized, spell democracy. It means tak- 
ing the points of separation out and making 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 51 

U. S. spell *^us.'' It is a vision of such possi- 
bilities which caused Charles E. Hughes, when 
Governor of New York, to say at a community 
center meeting in Rochester, ^^I am more inter- 
ested in what you are doing and what it stands 
for than anything else in the world. You are 
buttressing the foundations of democracy. ' ' 

Once the school house is opened and lighted 
and the people are welcome to use it for any- 
thing that occurs to them, experience shows that 
very many things occur to them to do. 

The marvel of the motion picture may be used 
as a social magnet and dynamo of common en- 
tertainment and instruction. The community 
chorus, orchestra and band may bring their 
never-failing delight to the people. Dramatic 
ability has the opportunity of expression in 
these community meeting places. There are 
holiday celebrations possible, where the spirit 
of Christmas and New Year's may be spread 
broadcast and the message of Fourth of July, 
Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays, Me- 
morial Day, Thanksgiving and Labor Day may 
give refreshment and inspiration for every 
member of the community fellowship of folks. 

Community baseball teams and other athletic 
organizations will stir the enthusiasm of Amer- 
ican neighborhoods. Pageants where the folk 
songs and folk dances of America's adopted 



52 The Community Capitol. 

sons and daughters, have a part, will help give 
these former strangers a real sense of partner- 
ship in the great task of making America. 

Every Citizen Made Richer. 

Libraries of reference books and materials in 
the community center will make every citizen 
richer. This information will include official 
publications from the capitols of the city and 
state and nation for the use of citizens in the 
capitol of the community. There will be co- 
ordination of governmental activities, the lack 
of which has cost the people uncounted millions 
of dollars. In this community house, the agri- 
cultural and industrial experts will find the 
people gathered to hear their messages of in- 
struction. Here the Public Health Service will 
find the community service, ready and eager for 
cooperation. 

In the community secretary is found the logi- 
cal person to act as census-taker, not simply at 
ten-year periods, but to keep a sensible census, 
with all vital statistics kept up to date, ready 
for the many uses, for which they are needed. 
No other person can serve so well as employ- 
ment agent, for he is in direct touch with the 
people and with the conditions in the com- 
munity. 

In a multitude of ways, this real community 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 53 

organization means efficiency and economy. 
Every dollar of tax money spent in the estab- 
lishment and maintenance of community centers 
will return tenfold in the one item of saving of 
needless governmental activities and present 
duplications. 

Over and above all these benefits, every one 
of which has been successfully carried out in the 
public school community centers, stands the 
major boon — the attainment of democracy — a 
people getting together for happiness — and by 
common counsel and mutual agreement solving 
their problems of every kind. The tremendous 
responsibility of being citizens in a democracy 
upon which the future of the world's civilization 
depends, becomes the joy of fellowship in the 
great cause of the world, the common good, 
when individuals may join hands with their 
neighbors for united efforts. Cooperation in 
business has been practiced for years, but the 
greatest business in the world to-day, is the 
business of being a true American citizen and it 
can only be accomplished in cooperation with 
fellow Americans. 

Wherever organized in all-inclusive associa- 
tion of neighbors, with responsible public 
servants in charge of arrangements, under the 
direction of the community, the meetings in the 
school buildings have witnessed a sustained en- 



54 The Community Capitol. 

thusiasm above that secured by any group ac- 
tivity. There is something lacking in every 
group assembly, no matter how close the ties 
that bind members together. In The American 
Legion Weekly, a leading article dealt with 
statements of an officer of a certain post who 
complained that only seven members out of 200 
attend the meetings. This is an organization of 
*^pals'^ who faced death together, the strongest 
possible tie, save that between members of the 
community, who are facing life together. 

The clash of honest expressions of opinion in 
conference upon matters of importance to all is 
the most interesting, as it is the most educa- 
tional thing in the world. It is told that in 
pioneer times in Kentucky a peddler passed 
through a frontier town on muster day. Two 
contentious citizens were engaged in violent de- 
bate. The wayfarer moved on after listening 
several hours, but the debate was still actively 
in progress. A year later he returned for mus- 
ter day and found that the two oldsters had 
resumed the arg-ument apparently at the same 
point it had been dropped twelve months before. 
The listener hearkened for a time and then dis- 
mounted from his wagon and hailed one of the 
audience, *^I wonder how I can take up a sec- 
tion of land in this district, '' he said. **I'm 
thinkin' about livin' here from now on.'* 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 55 

^^You must like the looks of the country," 
said the resident. 

**No, not particular/' he responded, ^^but I 
aim to stay here and find out how that argument 
is goin' to turn out if it takes me the rest of 
my life/' 

Now, while debate without decision is folly, 
decision without debate is dangerous. Neither 
one need be chosen when the community gets to- 
gether for orderly discussion and mutual de- 
cision. No other service is greater than for a 
man, through practice in fellowship, to be able 
to analyze the motives of men, to know how to 
rebuke their worst impulses and at the same 
time to inspire their best qualities : to be able to 
puncture sophistry and to encourage truth; to 
be able to allay strife and promote good will. 
These are the accomplishments and this leader- 
ship which America needs now as never before. 
There are no better places for the development 
of leadership than in community assemblies, 
where opportunity meets the masterful man. 
Here great hearts may be schooled to lift man- 
kind and set wider the bounds of freedom. Here 
responsibility and friendship, those two great 
teachers, imbue lessons of righteousness, cau- 
tion and courage and turn f eeblings into giants. 

Of course, real leadership and real com- 
munity development are possible only where 



56 The Community Capitol. 

thought and speech are free. In view of what 
I have said, it should not be necessary to sug- 
gest that in the community center, there will be 
no censorship on what is spoken, save that which 
is self-imposed by the community itself. 

Free Speech and Good Sense. 

There is no restraint on the utterances of law- 
makers in their capitols, instead there is a con- 
stitutional provision that members of Congress 
shall not be called to account elsewhere for their 
expressions on the floor of Congress. If such 
free speech is wise for lawmakers, how much 
more essential for the makers of lawmakers, 
when they meet in their own community capitols 
for deliberation and decision. 

There will be radical utterances, unwise 
words, suggestions full of folly. These may 
safely be left to the collective good sense of the 
community. A mere notion may always be ex- 
ploded by asking its author to submit plans and 
specifications. That is exactly what the neigh- 
borhood assembly demands in its all-sided dis- 
cussion and there are few harebrains who enjoy 
continually throwing down the gauntlet to com- 
munity good judgment only to be forced immedi- 
ately to throw up the sponge. 

In any case, there is far greater danger in 
repression than in expression. Out in the sun- 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 57 

shine the most foolish or desperate remedies 
are seen at their real value ; driven to the cellar 
they may become agencies of destruction. The 
choice is between brains and bombs, debate and 
dynamite. 

Scientists declare that the germs of yellow 
fever and tuberculosis cannot live in the sun- 
shine. Neither can the germs of corruption and 
fraud and treason. The command of Almighty 
God, ^^Let there be light,'' is the Divine assur- 
ance that the light itself helps to banish con- 
fusion and chaos and crime. 

In Knight's History of England there is a 
recital of the struggle necessary before street 
lamps could be erected in London. When the 
attempt was made in the Sixteenth Century, 
every imaginable catastrophe was prophesied. 
Then in 1807, when the effort was made to sub- 
stitute gas lights for oil lamps, the battle had to' 
be fought over again. Men said it would be the 
destruction of the whale oil industry as well as 
many other business enterprises dependent 
upon the oil lighting system. But the advocates 
for more and better light won and the historian, 
in describing the victory uses the significant 
statement: *' These adventurers in light did 
more for the prevention of crime than the gov- 
ernment had done in centuries." 

Democracy and ignorance are incompatible. 



58 The Community Capitol. 

We must have faith that an enlightened citizen- 
ship can be trusted with self-government and 
there can be no enlightenment where thought 
and speech are not free. Organized for action 
and with the light turned on, America will 
prove red-blooded enough to withstand any dis- 
ease that may assail her in this or any other 
hour of peril. 

Let us have honest opinions from honest 
throats in community assemblies. Let every 
individual have a fair chance for the orderly 
expression of his mind for only so may be dis- 
covered the common interest. There has been 
too much use of language to conceal thought. 
It is time now for the men of short and simple 
words which convey ideas that all may under- 
stand. Too often the confusion has come from 
those who talk about our need of a psychology, 
when our need is common sense. * * Be what you 
want people to think you are,'' says one, but 
when it is quoted by one of these throwers of 
dust it becomes instead ^^ never imagine your- 
self to be otherwise from what it might appear 
to others that you were or might have been was 
not otherwise than what you had been would 
have appeared to them to be otherwise." 

The organization of the citizenship of com- 
munities, in neighborly assemblies is the next 
step in democracy. Perhaps because of that 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 59 

very fact it is meeting with opposition and 
probably will meet with opposition until it is an 
accomplished fact, embedded forever in our 
system. Always and everywhere there have 
been those who regard everything old as sacred 
and everything new as dangerous. This is but 
a new use of an old institution, but still there 
are those who protest against its adoption. It 
is the same old fight. Every new idea must run 
the gauntlet of jeers and sneers, while the idea 
that means social welfare and equal opportunity 
must endure bitter and organized opposition 
as well. 

The idea of community organization, with its 
promise of real people ^s rule is opposed by 
those who honestly fear democracy. It is op- 
posed by every special interest which fears that 
public enlightenment will end its exploiting 
power. It is opposed by every corrupt political 
*^boss^^ and parasite, who know well that the 
one sure way of putting the ^^ machine" out of 
control is to put the people in control. 

It is opposed by some who have simply lost 
the vision of progress and have ranged them- 
selves on the side of reaction. Great men have 
in the past sinned against the light. Daniel 
Webster bitterly opposed the admission of 
Washington territory into the Union because he 
said that representatives in Congress could not 



60 The Community Capitol. 

make the journey to the National Capitol during 
their terms of office. 

George Westinghouse, inventor of the air- 
brake, went to Cornelius Vanderbilt, the rail- 
road king, with his epoch-making invention and 
asked for assistance in putting it on the market. 
Vanderbilt 's greeting was brusque and final, **I 
have no time to talk to a fool who thinks he can 
stop a railroad train with wind. ' ' 

When Westinghouse had found others to give 
him a helping hand and he was basking in suc- 
cess and prosperity, he, too, lost the vision. 
The Wright brothers came to him and asked to 
explain their aeroplane designs. Westing- 
house refused in almost the words of Vander- 
bilt on that other day, ^ ^ Only a fool would spend 
time trying to fly like a bird. ' ' 

After all, every standpatter and reactionary, 
is a lineal descendant of his prototype, the old 
philosopher of classic days, whose name was 
Duns. His disciples were known as Dunsmen 
or Dunses. Only men of proved learning were 
admitted to this school. Then they stagnated, 
refused to recognize new ideas, shut their doors 
on progress. Their name, once a term of honor 
became a term of derision for foolish ignorance. 
To-day, as then, the reactionaries and stand- 
patters are the dunces of the world. 

Every argument which was levelled against 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 61 

the plan to establish a system of free, common 
schools in America has been used against the 
use of school buildings as community centers. 
The bitterest fight in the political history of 
Pennsylvania occurred when the legislature was 
about to decide as to the adoption or rejection 
of the public school. 

But the forces of light and progress w^on, just 
as they always triumph in the end. To-day 
when any person or interest in the United States 
opposes the community use of the public school 
building for honest, orderly, all-sided considera- 
tion of every matter of general concern, it may 
be taken as a fact that back of that opposition is 
something which needs to have the light turned 
upon it. Nothing that is good can be hurt by 
open consideration by citizens in their neigh- 
borhood assembly. 

Reaction Doomed To Defeat. 

Rest assured, all the forces of stagnation and 
reaction are doomed to final defeat. The peo- 
ple of America, long disorganized and inarticu- 
late are determined to try democracy. Their 
enlightened self-interest teaches them that they 
have failed to accomplish real sovereignty, in 
spite of all glittering, spread-eagle phrases and 
they know it is due to the fact that the several 
sections of the community are fighting among 



62 The Community Capitol. 

themselves. People's rule means cooperation, 
mutual understanding and a common desire. 
The people of America want to get together and 
in their hearts are resolving to pay the price for 
it. That is all that is necessary. In the com- 
mercial world, every wheel of industry starts, 
every avenue of trade opens, when there is a 
public demand for any article, be it pins or 
pianos, backed by a willingness to pay the price 
for it. The law holds good in other spheres 
than the commercial. The American people 
will have what they want and for which they 
will pay the price. Groping in the darkness of 
division and thwarted purposes, they are seeing 
the necessity of getting together as neigh- 
bors, not as partisans; as friends, not as 
strangers, and in the end they will have their 
way. 

Once the people have seen the power and have 
known the joy of getting together, there will be 
no return to jungle warfare. It required a 
general order from the German Army authori- 
ties to prevent German soldiers from frater- 
nizing with the British, in January, 1917, after 
they had played football games together on 
Christmas Day. There will be no authority 
able to prevent the fraternization of the Amer- 
ican people, once they have come together in 
fellowship, once they have carried out the desire 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 63 

of Theodore Roosevelt, ^* We can and shall make 
every school house a senate chamber of the 
people/^ 

Surely, surely, the school houses of all Amer- 
ica, in city and countryside, in mountain dis- 
trict and prairie land, will prove to be the 
springs and streams, feeding the great river of 
Liberty, destined to enrich the whole earth with 
its refreshing tide. 

By lighting the lamps in the school houses for 
the gathering of the people we shall raise aloft 
the beacon light of democracy. Outlining our 
land boundaries and watery margins, from the 
Great Lakes by Niagara, and the St. Lawrence, 
by the Atlantic beaches, far out to Porto Rico, 
beyond the Gulf and Caribbean, Uncle Sam's 
great southern lakes, to the new Virgin Islands, 
across Panama, up the western coast past the 
golden shores of California to the Columbia and 
Puget Sound, along the international boundary 
eastward again — as the sun goes down and the 
stars come out over eastern Maine — the lighted 
windows of school houses will twinkle out of the 
dark ; cheery, welcoming lights of school house 
community centers. 

Westward with the spreading darkness will 
shine out community center lights in river val- 
leys of the Penobscot and Kennebec, along the 
Connecticut, the Hudson and the Mohawk; by 



64 The Community Capitol. 

the Delaware and the James, they follow the 
Santee and the Savannah and ^ ^ way down on the 
Swanee River'' the inspiring strains of *^ Dixie" 
will stir the blood of old folks and young, gath- 
ered in neighborly counsel to discuss the prob- 
lems of America, the greatest human enterprise 
of the world. 

From where Louisiana spans our mighty 
spinal river, sparkling lights from school house 
windows will trace the course of the Father of 
Waters and all the nations enmeshing valleys of 
his 25,000 miles of tributary waterways. 

Our harried neighbors south of the Rio 
Grande will hear the friendly voices from 
lighted doorways and with the hope of better 
days send the hail ''Amigos" across the north- 
ern bank. 

There will be lights down by Colorado's can- 
yons, on solitary mesas, and garden spots re- 
deemed from desert w^astes. In farm villages 
across the prairies, in little mining towns far up 
the slopes of the Rockies and the Sierra 
Nevadas, and lonely lumber camps among tall 
firs and gigantic redwoods in valleys of the Cas- 
cades and Coast Range Mountains, will be 
lighted windows and folks gathered in their 
school houses in the splendid kindly task of 
making a nation. 

There will be lights in New York City, metrop- 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 65 

olis of the world ; in Washington, where gather 
representatives to speak and act for all the peo- 
ple ; in Pittsburgh, where flaming furnaces turn 
night into day; in Chicago, youthful marvel of 
enterprise and achievement; in San Francisco, 
speaking of an heroic rising from the ashes of 
disaster; in all the cities between, the kindly 
lights of community school houses will twinkle 
an invitation to all to break down the barriers of 
loneliness and doubt and distrust and become 
indeed members of America. 

The Fellowship of the Folks. 

It is the fellowship of folks. It is the dif- 
fusion of light by radiation, even as every par- 
ticle of air is a miniature sun, radiating light in 
every direction. Without that principle in 
action, it would be impossible to illuminate a 
room by means of a window, for there would be 
but shafts from the direct sun rays. So too, 
must be the enlightenment of democracy. 
Washington truly said, ^'In proportion as the 
structure of the government gives force to 
public opinion, it is essential that public opinion 
be enlightened. ' ' There cannot be this enlight- 
enment unless the individual has an opportunity 
to know and extend and reflect the truth, in the 
mutual conference which always modifies and 
improves the thoughts of individuals. 

5 



66 The Community Capitol. 

The fellowship of the folks. It is a desire 
fundamentally American. With it we shall 
have all the splendor we boast to-day, without 
the shame; we shall have all the enterprise 
without the enmity; we shall have all the 
statesmanship, without the treason on its brow ; 
we shall have all the legislation, without the 
lawlessness ; all the glory without the greed, all 
the steps upward to genuine brotherhood, with- 
out the sinister paths through the regions of 
strife, bequeathed to man by Satan, Father of 
Division and the eternal Anarch of the world. 

Fair as a vision of the psalmist spreads this 
Promised Land, America, under the new order. 
A people, freed from hates and prejudices and 
ignorances, realizing democracy by getting to- 
gether for happiness, moving forward to the su- 
preme goal of life. 

To every believer in democracy, man and 
woman alike, comes the ringing challenge to 
help institute these community centers, so that 
they may become a living force in every Amer- 
ican neighborhood, just as the public school is 
to-day. 

*'Make wide the doorway of the school, 
Around whose sill the millions await — 
The cradle of the common rule, 
The forum of a stronger state. 



The Fellowship of the Folks. 67 

' ' Make broad the bar and bid appear, 
The questions, clamorous to be tried, 
And let the final judges hear. 

Themselves, the questions they decide. 

"Write bold the text for age to read. 
The lesson not discerned by youth 
And raise the altar of a creed. 
Whose only article is Truth. 

"Though fair and dear the ancient mold. 
Wherein the burning thought was cast. 
Pour not the New World 's glowing gold 
Into the patterns of the past. 

"Whatever channels lead apart 

The currents of the lives of men. 
The blood that left the Common Heart, 
Shall leap with common pulse again. ' ' 



Part II 
Back of the Ballot— and Beyond 



II 

BACK OF THE BALLOT— AND BEYOND. 

During all the years of recorded history be- 
fore the adoption of the American Constitu- 
tion and the foundation of this Republic, there 
was no government to which the truthful his- 
torian could point and say ^^ There was a gov- 
ernment which efficiently served its people. ' ' 

To-day we are in the midst of chaos and con- 
fusion as the result of a breaking political 
system. Unless the defects are cured the his- 
torian of the future will include the American 
form of government with all the failures of the 
past and record the verdict, '^Thou, too, hast 
been weighed in the balance and found want- 
ing. ' ' 

We found ourselves at war with Germany 
and Austria-Hungary, two years after hostili- 
ties had ceased. Obnoxious and repressive 
legislation, necessary for war but intolerable in 
time of peace, remained on the statute books, 
because there was no power to compel President 
and Senate to take decisive action for the com- 
mon good. 

This collapse was preceded by the breakdown 

71 



72 The Community Capitol. 

of the political system when the nation was chal- 
lenged by war with the German Empire. On 
every hand were heard the cries ^^We must get 
together ' ' but it was found that with all our ef- 
forts we could not voluntarily get together. 
The only way we could attain the unity impera- 
tive for victory was by despotic power in the 
hands of one man — the President of the United 
States. 

Overboard went every old-time principle of 
democracy. The people and their chosen repre- 
sentatives abdicated their authority and autoc- 
racy was enthroned. 

There was no other way. Our political insti- 
tutions had not trained the citizenship for self- 
reliant cooperation, either in peace or war. 
Strangely enough, the war to ^ ^ make democracy 
safe around the world" was won without the aid 
of democracy at home. We conquered Prussia 
but in doing so practically Prussianized our- 
selves. 

The war over, we saw the executive power of 
the nation in the hands of one party and the 
legislative power controlled by the opposition 
party. We saw friction and nullification, a 
government by obstruction. One branch of the 
government played politics against the other 
and both put partisan advantage above the pub- 
lic welfare. 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 73 

We see inexperienced men named as heads of 
great departments of government, to be re- 
moved or transferred as soon as they have 
gained knowledge of their business. We see 
duplication of activities, with countless millions 
of dollars worse than wasted, in developing an 
inefficient, cumbersome organization, doomed 
to collapse from its own weight. 

Warring interests battle for conquest over 
the people's rights. Social spirit, the action of 
man on man, fails to achieve the triumph over 
selfishness and greed. 

There is distrust of law-making bodies, sus- 
picion of agents elected to public office. It is 
not the discontent of the disfranchised but of 
citizens, possessed of the ballot. Newspapers 
join in the jibe at legislators that the trouble 
with their political economy is that it is all 
political. A magazine editor tells of a con- 
gressman who borrowed $1,000 of a pawnbroker 
on no security save his honor, just as a loan 
shark law was being considered and then re- 
marks that some pawnbrokers are getting 
mighty careless about their collateral. 

A legislature expelled regularly-elected rep- 
resentatives because of their political opinions ; 
a congress refused to deal with tragically 
mounting prices of necessaries, though retail 
price lists made sober-minded men see red. 




74 The Community Capitol. 

Many citizens express doubt of the efficacy of 
American institutions, while others openly ad- 
vocate the dagger and dynamite. 

But even in the face of such challenges as 
these in a government by parties we see lines 
running across political parties instead of be- 
tween them. Leaders in each party represent 
all shades of political opinion, while upon every 
issue of importance there is enough difference 
of opinion in both major parties to cause a split, 
once concrete action is attempted. 

In the pre-convention presidential campaign 
of 1920 there was witnessed on one hand the use 
of greater sums of money than ever before and 
on the other an unprecedented indifference on 
the part of the voters to these costly appeals for 
their franchise. Only a minority of the vote 
was cast where presidential preference was pos- 
sible or where delegates were to be elected. 

Cries of scandal and corruption were raised 
against condidates for the presidential nomina- 
tions, who undertook to do the very thing our 
system makes imperative. The United States 
Senate Investigating Committee showed that, 
except in a few rare instances, the money ex- 
pended by candidates, with immense campaign 
funds, was used for entirely legitimate and nec- 
essary expenses. 

Anv candidate whose name and record are not 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 75 

household terms, must have nation-wide organi- 
zation and publicity. He must have state and 
local headquarters, literature in vast quantities, 
and professional campaigners to carry his 
arguments to special groups of people. The 
1920 presidential campaign cost more than 
$15,000,000 and the vast proportion of this 
money was spent for these purposes. 

Because General Wood, Governor Lowden 
and others undertook to perform the task our 
present system requires, they were judged un- 
available for the office to which they aspired. 
Though they had made a nation-wide appeal 
and received nation-wide support, their chances 
were wrecked by the simple process of turning 
the spotlight on their money-bags and shouting, 
^^ Scandal.'' 

With their rejection came the selection of men 
in both parties who had made little or no effort 
to place their candidacies directly before the 
people of the nation and secure a mandate from 
the voters themselves. 

The basis of the American form of govern- 
ment is majority rule — the right of the people 
to be arbiters of men and measures. But the 
people did not select either presidential candi- 
date as their choice for President. One did not 
have a solid delegation from his own state and 
the other's pledged delegates were far fewer 



76 The Community Capitol. 

than those sent by the people to vote for other 
candidates. 

In November, the people had merely the privi- 
lege of voting for one or the other of candidates 
named by the very few leaders, gathered at the 
national conventions. This is but a shadow- 
privilege for the right to select candidates is far 
more vital than the right to elect them. 

The Weakness Lies in Lack of Coordination. 

What is wrong! What is the source of all 
these ills that menace the American form of 
government and witness the breakdown of our 
political institutions! Not now are our evils 
due to the weakness of the national government 
as in that other critical period between the 
Eevolution and the adoption of the Constitution. 
They are due solely to the weakness of national 
citizenship organization. Lack of unity and 
coordination of individual citizens for the com- 
mon welfare has robbed the citizens of the sense 
of membership in the supreme work of making 
America make good. 

We have fallen into the net spread in the path 
of all democracies, the evil of divided and an- 
tagonistic interests, which cause citizens to lose 
their common purposes and forget the general 
welfare in the midst of efforts to secure for cer- 
tain groups or classes advantages over all the 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 77 

others. Domestic contentions, revolving about 
the desires of a part and not the good of the 
whole, have been a source of the breakdown of 
political institutions. Americans have not been 
thinking and acting and serving together, but 
sectionally and factionally. 

During the period of the creation and estab- 
lishment of America there was steadfast co- 
operation for common ends. The immortal 
Declaration of Independence embodied the will 
of the people of the thirteen colonies when it de- 
clared that ^ ' all men are created equal. ' ' That 
is a simple statement but it contains dynamite 
enough to strike down forever the doctrine of 
the Divine right of one man or one set of men 
to rule their fellows. It declared that the peo- 
ple are the source of all power, that just govern- 
ment rests on the consent of the governed and 
that the citizenship of a nation have an inherent 
right to change the government whenever and 
however it is deemed by them to be best. 

But the most important words in that mighty 
document were not its statement of the wisdom 
of democracy, or its proofs of the vicious folly 
of one man rule; not even its announcement 
that henceforth the subjection of America to 
any other nation was ended. The most im- 
portant words in that great charter were those 
with which it closed and without which those 



78 The Community Capitol. 

that preceded would have had no significance: 

''For the support of the Declaration with a 
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- 
dence, we mutuallp pledge to each other our 
lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. ' ' 

That sense of unity and mutual obligation 
and common duty was a visible fact. Meeting 
and milling in their town halls the people 
worked out their political salvation. 

In community assemblies men voiced the com- 
mon thought of the common people and, because 
they did so, were chosen leaders. It was the 
spirit of freedom, bred in the town meeting, that 
made Lexington and Yorktown possible. Inde- 
pendence was won in the hearts of the people, 
through common counsel, before the Declaration 
was written and its red-blooded challenges to 
despotism but voiced the agreement of their 
will. 

It is a far cry from that resolution of unity, 
throbbing with mutual purpose, to the present 
lack of neighborliness, the mingling of citizens 
without fellowship, the contacts of the people 
without intercourse, the absence of collective 
opinion and the cold and dismal lines of divi- 
sion. 

We have so far departed from the old ideal 
that the Declaration of Independence, our first 
and foremost state paper, is branded in high 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 79 

official circles as a dangerous document, to be 
kept away from the people, whenever possible. 

For example, it was early in 1920, when Ed- 
ward J. Ward, of the United States Bureau of 
Education, gave a series of lectures in the 
Franklin School in Washington, for the benefit 
of community workers, public school teachers 
and others interested in educational subjects. 
He announced in his opening lecture that he 
would use as the basis of his discourses, the 
American Declaration of Independence and re- 
quested those present to bring a printed copy of 
the document with them for the future lectures. 

Mrs. William Wolif Smith, wife of a major in 
the United States Army, was present for the 
opening lecture. Her husband had been con- 
nected with the printing office at the Walter 
Reed Hospital, where the soldier ^s paper. The 
Comehach, was printed. He had been trans- 
ferred from his position there and the boys had 
often voiced a desire to give him some testi- 
monial of their regard. 

Mrs. Smith conceived the idea that such a 
testimonial could be given and at the same time 
a valuable service performed, if there were 
printed a few hundred folders containing the 
Declaration of Independence. These, coming 
from the printing office of the soldiers' institu- 



80 The Community Capitol. 

tioii, would be a souvenir gift and also serve as 
text for those attending the Ward lectures. 

The plan was placed first before an officer of 
the Surgeon General's Office and he approved it 
and the copy was sent to the printing office. The 
folder was to contain a title page, with the poem, 

Breathes there a man, with soul so dead 
Who never to hin^self hath said, 
"This is my own, my native land." 

The Declakation of Independence and the 
Wak Department. 

The additional pages were to contain only the 
text of the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence. When the folders were not delivered as 
promised, Mrs. Smith went to the office. She 
was put off with evasive replies, but insisted on 
knowing why the folders were not printed. At 
last the officer in charge told her that it had been 
officially decided that it would be unwise to 
print the Declaration of Independence by the 
War Department, because it would be an act of 
discourtesy to our friends, the British, and also 
that in the inflamed state of the public mind, 
such a publication might increase social unrest 
and the tendency to Bolshevism. The officer 
stated, without equivocation, that, for these rea- 
sons, the copies of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence would not be issued from the printing office 




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Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 81 

maintained by the War Department of the 
United States Government. 

Such an incident points out the long and 
devious path we have trod since seventy-six. 
It shows the belief, so false to fundamental 
Americanism, that the people must be dealt with 
in kindergarten fashion. It is assumption by 
agents of the people, of the power of the people 
and such public officers, in themselves, typify 
the very usurped power against which the 
Declaration of Independence was directed. 

Perhaps such officials honestly believe that a 
study of the Declaration will send the American 
people out in a body against Great Britain, or 
lead them to set up a Bolshevist government 
and destroy the institution of their own private 
property. But at least, it will be admitted by 
all that such a belief does not harmonize with 
Americanism and that the officials who hold it 
should have no public position under our form 
of government. Indeed, any official in our 
government, from the lowest to the highest, who 
exercises such arbitrary authority, hatches 
treason to the nation. 

Our motto to-day should be *^Back to the 
unity of the Declaration. ' ' Somehow there must 
be secured the unified public mind which comes 
from common participation in government and 
mutual rights to a place in the fraternity of 



82 The Community Capitol. 

America. We must Americanize the political 
system and secure to the people their right to 
^ ^ act and speak and serve together, ' ' so that, all 
else forgot, they may pledge their hearts, their 
lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor, to 
America first and America forever. 

Over in France in the early days of 1918 regi- 
ments of American and Australian soldiers 
were brigaded together. As a German pris- 
oner was being brought through their lines one 
day, a brawny Australian pulled off the '*Gott 
Mitt Tins'' belt buckle, which was a part of 
every Prussian equipment, and asked the pris- 
oner what it meant. He explained that it meant 
that Germany could never be defeated, that the 
good old German Gott would see that all Ger- 
many's enemies were overthrown. ^^What do 
we care if you have got your German Gott 
with you," said the Australian soldier, ** We've 
got the Yankees with us." To-day, as never 
before America needs the Yankees, all of them, 
with her, for victory over the spirit of caste and 
class and group, which menace democracy. One 
thing is assured; we shall never overcome the 
evils which surround us, unless in the individual 
citizens of America there is aroused a sense of 
partnership in government and a fair chance to 
exercise his voice and vote in its affairs. 

The future of America depends upon secur- 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 83 

ing a method for the vast American electorate 
to attain that previous agreement of mind and 
will, without which primaries and elections are 
either games of chance or a series of machine- 
ruled ratification meetings. There must be 
found the way by which the people may discover 
what they want and then have power to execute 
their desire. There must be not only oppor- 
tunity for the expression of organized public 
opinion at the ballot box, but also for the ex- 
pression of the preventitive power of public 
opinion. In other words, the whole citizenship 
must be given the opportunity to consider and 
discuss mutually the merits of the candidates 
for whom they are to vote and they must also be 
able to keep a guiding hand on candidates after 
they become public officials, to reach out and ex- 
press their will to their agents in places of 
power. 

That means that the people must get together 
^ ^ for common counsel, so that they may discover 
the common interest.'' As Theodore Roosevelt 
said, ^^It is impossible for one man to accom- 
plish anything by himself. He must associate 
with others and they must throw their weight 
together." The people must be able to get to- 
gether as citizens and neighbors if they are to 
end the misunderstandings and enmities which 
have prevented unity of feeling and purpose. 



84 The Community Capitol. 

There can be no health in a body unless there is 
close interrelationship of all the cells and parts 
of the body. So there cannot be health in a 
community without coordination and such con- 
tact between all members as constitutes union. 

There is absolutely no way to secure unity 
with liberty save by bringing folks into fellow- 
ship, so that they may understand each other 
and through such understanding, create common 
sympathies and common feelings. There is no 
way to attain democracy save by having people 
know each other. 

The importance of the assembling of the peo- 
ple was recognized by the founders of the Re- 
public, when they incorporated in the so-called 
Bill of Rights the provision that Congress 
should have no power to interfere with this 
fundamental right. But the right of the people 
to assemble is worthless unless there is a place 
of assembly. When Congress or state legisla- 
ture or city council assembles for the duty of 
discussion and decision, splendid buildings are 
ready for use, paid for by the people whose 
business is to be transacted by these delegated 
officials. 

It is admitted by every sane man that without 
these places of assembly there could be no per- 
formance of duty. But, if it is important for 
these agents of the people to have their places 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 85 

of assembly, is it not vastly more important that 
the people, creators of congressmen, state legis- 
lators and city councilmen have a place where 
they may gather of right, upon the common 
ground of performing their duties as sovereign 
citizens 1 

A Capitol For Each Community. 

If there were not buildings already available 
it would be the part of wisdom to erect in each 
community, a commodious capitol of the people, 
for the sole purpose of providing the place for 
that assembly, whose right is guaranteed the 
people by the Constitution. 

Fortunately, there is already in each unit of 
neighborhood a public school building, owned 
by all the people, without regard to any lines of 
sect or creed or party or income. These build- 
ings are conveniently located and they are 
capable of being used as the gathering place for 
neighborly participation in the control of 
America. 

The public school house should be the polling 
place, the voting headquarters in every com- 
munity. It is the common building of the com- 
munity's best cooperation. The ballot box has 
no place in association with the jail, the sup- 
pression tool of human force, nor the fire engine, 
the suppression instrument of nature's force. 



86 The Community Capitol. 

These are negative, while government must be 
positive, a constructive process of cooperation. 
The ballot box is the ark of the covenant and it 
belongs in the building which typifies the most 
distinctive American institution. Placed there, 
it gives added dignity to the act of voting and 
becomes the center about which all the rest of 
the structure will be planned. 

Still, voting is but one phase of the duty of 
citizenship. If there is to be intelligent voting 
there must be full deliberation, with fair hear- 
ing and free discussion. Otherwise, the phrase 
*^will of the people'' is empty and meaningless. 

What the town hall was to New England in 
other crisis times, yes, even more than that, the 
school house must be to-day in this pivotal point 
of American history. We have left out the 
most important thing in our democracy, pro- 
vision for mutual deliberation and discussion, 
in the neighborhoods and little wonder the ma- 
chinery of democracy no longer functions 
properly. 

It is told by some one that a tinker appeared 
in a rural community one day and a clock was 
given him to mend. He worked at it for a con- 
siderable time, volubly explaining his ability in 
fixing things and how fortunate it was that he 
appeared just when he did. When he was 
ready to leave and about to receive his pay, the 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 87 

farmer noticed that a wheel had been left out. 
The tinker's attention was called to the omis- 
sion but he met it cheerily, ^^Oh, that's all right, 
that's what's the matter with it." 

The mainspring of democracy is cooperation 
and common action. National tinkers have left 
it out, with the result we have already seen. It 
is time for restoration of this supremely impor- 
tant part of the mechanism of democratic gov- 
ernment. Let the people get together regard- 
less of all lines of division, as neighbors and 
citizens, to discuss all problems and candidates 
from the standpoint of the public welfare and 
the common mind, wiser than any single mind, 
kinder than any single heart, more just than 
any single judgment, will sway the destinies of 
America and meet the greatest single need of 
to-day. 

The proposal is simply that the citizenship 
of America, now organized by voting districts 
for the purpose of decision shall organize for 
the orderly deliberation which is essential to in- 
telligent decision. It is to have the citizenship, 
possessor of sovereign power, do exactly what 
every body of subordinate public officials now 
does as a matter of course. 

Such organization means a membership 
which includes every citizen in the community. 
It must be all-inclusive, with no qualification 



88 The Community Capitol. 

required, save that of citizenship. It is the real 
Voters League, with every voter a member by 
right. Of course, it will be democratically or- 
ganized, the officials chosen freely by the com- 
munity. In order to function effectively, the 
duties of community secretary, the elected 
servant of the community, will be performed by 
an official, who is not a volunteer worker, but is 
paid from public funds. His is a distinctly 
public service, more important than that of the 
clerks in Congress or legislature or council, and 
should be performed in every community by a 
secretary, equipped and paid by the public. 

With such organization on the basis of citi- 
zenship, not party, the prejudices of partisan- 
ship will give way to the rule of reason, brought 
out in open discussion and mutual conference. 
Then it will be seen that the use of independent 
judgment on the part of the citizens is a supreme 
duty and that following a party blindly is not a 
pious act. Though the whole future of democ- 
racy depends on independence of action, in the 
past the path of the independent in politics has 
been beset with thorns. He has been forced to 
endure the siege of misunderstanding, the fire 
of ridicule and the storm of crticism. The 
whole political system urged him to seek shelter 
behind the walls of party prejudice, custom and 
selfish interest and plead party loyalty as balm 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 89 

for his violated conscience. With a fair chance 
in the assembly of neighbors gathered together 
for the public weal, the independent thinker 
will not be put to disadvantage before the 
cowardly creature of a party machine, with all 
marks of the collar about his neck. 

Five years of common sense community or- 
ganization for practice in citizenship, both in 
the home environment and the wider fields of 
states and nation, will put an end to machine 
rule. The average citizen, once his eyes are 
opened to the common interest and his hands 
struck into those of his neighbors for effective 
action, will eliminate this costly, inefficient, cor- 
rupt, control. There is not a district in Amer- 
ica where a *^ machine'^ can win against an 
organized citizenship. 

The whole trouble lies in the fact that thus 
far, the only sustained effort to secure partici- 
pation in governmental action on the part of the 
electorate has been through party organization. 
The party says, *^Let every voter join a political 
party and stick with it to the finish, and have a 
part in its efforts to control the government.'' 
This plan has signally failed because possession 
of the right to vote does not in itself make the 
opinion of the majority a controlling factor. 
There must be an opportunity for voters to 
make up their minds on the problems of the 



90 The Community Capitol. 

day, not from any one-sided presentation but 
in the light of all the facts. Knowledge is nec- 
essary to proper action and ^^ken^' and ^*can'' 
are the same, in etymology and in fact. 

The task of all-sided discussion is not under- 
taken by the party organization, under the pres- 
ent system, for the simple reason that it would 
lessen its own power. In the end, therefore, the 
party organization seeks to secure the agree- 
ment of a considerable number of persons, not 
on the basis of the public welfare but through 
an appeal to selfish interests. The party makes 
these electors of one mind by making them a 
group, able to profit from the public plunder 
and this cohesive power is sufficient for the erec- 
tion of the party ^'machine.'' They thus make 
the party to be ^^a body of men united for pro- 
moting by their joint endeavors, their own 
interests, by methods on which they are all 
agreed. ' * 

The *^ machine,'' composed of persons who 
know exactly what they want, has a tremendous 
advantage. When the mass of the citizenship 
is unorganized and inarticulate any organized 
group, with a definite program, can carry out 
its will. Bolshevism conquered Russia because 
the people were in a state of confusion and 
chaos, while a comparatively few * ' Reds ' ' were 
organized in efficient fashion. The *^ machine'* 



Back op the Ballot — and Beyond. 91 

takes possession of the party and by using the 
sacramental sanction of the party name, with 
all its original traditions and associations, it 
succeeds in rallying many decent men to its sup- 
port. Its whole idea of political strategy is the 
laying of traps to catch the unwary. For this 
reason, the semblance of popular control is pre- 
served and cunningly devised arrangements to 
secure minority control are hidden as far as 
possible from the public gaze. 

Members of the ^ ^machine'' use their power 
to monopolize public office for themselves, to 
gain wealth and to protect each other from pun- 
ishment for their criminal acts. They huckster 
offices and trade in legislation. They manipu- 
late the ballot and rob the ballot box. They 
pollute politics and damn patriotic aspiration 
and become enemies of all progress and sworn 
foes of morality, respectability and patriotism. 
Government by the ^^ machine" is the worst pos- 
sible government. It is government by the worst 
possible elements in the worst possible way. 
It is a nefarious system of minority rule, by 
groups that need money for success and repay 
financial benefactors with grants of special 
privilege. 

The reaction on the part of the great body of 
the citizenship is seen in the refusal of voters to 
take any part in politics and the disgust with 



92 The Community Capitol. 

which the whole sphere of politics is viewed. 
The very name ^'politicians' is a synonym for 
contempt. Seeing the prostitution of every 
idea of right and justice and the subversion of 
every true principle of government, many citi- 
zens wash their hands of it all, while at the same 
time a menacing fire of protest smoulders in 
their hearts and many begin to grope blindly to- 
ward other methods of governmental change 
than through the ballot box. 

Civic Indifference and Its Cause. 

Now, the first basis of democratic government 
is active participation of the great mass of the 
citizens. When only a minority of the voters 
goes to the polls, it is easy to denounce these 
negligent ones as slackers and traitors and Bol- 
shevists. Every reformer for a generation has 
poured out the vials of his wrath on these 
passive citizens who do not express their will at 
the ballot box, and a leading magazine has pub- 
lished a special article in which the '^ sleeping'' 
voter is termed the '^ greatest menace to 
America. ' ' 

When a vast number of voters deliberately 
and voluntarily disfranchise themselves in a 
government where theoretically every desired 
revolution is social, political or economic life 
may be accomplished through the simple proc- 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 93 

ess of putting a sufficient number of votes in the 
ballot box on the day of election, it is high time 
to make an earnest study of the reasons for 
such indifference. 

I contend that loss of the sense of partnership 
and ignorance of the facts which follow such 
loss explain the indifference to civic duties on 
the part of so many voters. The voter who is 
deeply interested in a candidate or measure is 
always on hand on the day of election. And 
always and everywhere in the United States the 
uninfluenced citizen, who has no interest in a 
measure or candidate and no opinions about 
either, instinctively refuses to vote at all. 

Every * * sleeping ' ^ voter in America is simply 
an example of the lack of opportunity to exert 
a genuine influence in civic affairs. If that op- 
portunity can be provided, the sleepers will 
awake, ready and eager to perform their full 
part in the task of making America make good. 
The interest, which is essential, can be culti- 
vated only by direct individual contact with 
community action, in neighborly, all-inclusive 
organization, where out of full and free discus- 
sion, the common interest may be discovered. 
Only thus may the average citizen, like the poli- 
tician under present conditions, know exactly 
what he is doing on election day. 

Those communities which are to-day termed 



94 The Community Capitol. 

** corrupt and contented^' or *^ Bolshevik and 
discontented'^ are simply communities robbed 
of the essential of democracy, and the together- 
spirit which comes from the touched elbows of 
citizens meeting on a common level for the com- 
mon good. I have seen a town in the Pitts- 
burgh district transformed from an indifferent, 
^'boss-ruled" community into a municipality 
where 90% of the vote was cast at every pri- 
mary and election, simply because there was 
effected in the public school house an organiza- 
tion of all the citizens, where at regular meet- 
ings, every candidate and issue was discussed 
on the basis of the community welfare rather 
than partisan success. L. E. McKenzie, of 
Donora, Pa., tells in a graphic way of the over- 
throw of the spirit of revolt and Bolshevism, 
through the so-called Donora Community Serv- 
ice, by which a sense of solidarity was effected, 
even though the organization itself lacked cer- 
tain fundamentals of real organization of the 
community. 

Politics in America has become simply a ques- 
tion of nomination and election, men competing 
for office on platforms meant to be only doors to 
that office, or rather the party platform is, in the 
words of the old negro ''jest the same as de 
platform in de railroad car when you'se goin' 
somewhar ; its the thing you uses to get in on. ' ' 



' Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 95 

The platforms adopted by the Eepublican 
party at Chicago and the Democratic party at 
San Francisco for the 1920 presidential cam- 
paign were omnibus programs, one plank on top 
of the other, with no connecting purpose or 
philosophy. The planks were shuffled like a 
pack of cards, some played at one time and some 
at another, as best suited the occasion. Both 
platforms were manufactured by hand-picked 
Committees on Eesolutions and the party mem- 
bership were not consulted. 

The chief issues bring forth only indecisive 
utterances and the platform builders seem to 
desire to use slippery elm planks. Few voters 
will read and profess to understand all the 
verbiage which has been designated as political 
creeds for the guidance of American voters. It 
is doubtful if there are a thousand Republicans 
or a thousand Democrats who sincerely believe 
in every plank of their respective platforms. 
Even the candidates have mental reservations 
and make their own interpretations even as did 
President Wilson in reference to the one-term 
plank in the platform on which he was elected 
in 1912. 

Under such conditions the mass of the voters 
have nothing left but to accept the interpreta- 
tion of campaign speakers and writers, or look 
to the candidates, or fall back on old party asso- 



96 The Community Capitol. 

ciations and leave the platforms for political 
historians. Such elections are verdicts of the 
minority of qualified voters and even on the 
part of those who do vote, are ambiguous and 
uncertain, whose meaning is wrangled over for 
four years. It is conceivable that a party, 
under present practice, may succeed in an elec- 
tion and yet not a single plank in the platform 
would secure the approval of a majority of the 
voters, if separately submitted. It is not to be 
wondered at that such elections do not settle 
issues but actually prevent their settlement by 
a definite expression of the people at the polls. 

Such a situation means popular ignorance of 
the attitude of the parties on many important 
issues and as surely leads to indifference as 
night follows day. The people know that the 
platforms are not simple, direct statements 
upon which parties ask for support, with the de- 
termination to embody them into law, if suc- 
cessful. The people know well too, that the 
heat and rancor of a brief campaign, permit no 
opportunity for accurately estimating any can- 
didate. They know that the epileptic fit which 
seizes the politicians every four years, or every 
two years, and which they seek to communicate 
to the people, is not the mood for sane judgment. 
They know how partisanship exaggerates virtue 
and weakness. They have come to believe that 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 97 

politics is the mother of lies and having no other 
method of securing information than through 
political literature, which deifies one candidate 
and spatters slime and filth on another, they 
have grown callous and indifferent to it all. 
Our system has palsied the American citizen- 
ship in the same fashion as the great eagle, 
which a naturalist describes as having been ex- 
posed to a storm of sleet and icy rain, and being- 
encased in a veritable coat of mail. Its wings 
became helpless and it was led along the sea- 
shore by a boy it could have carried off in its 
talons, had it possessed its full powers. 

Tkuth and Clear-Thinking Must Decide 
Elections. 

We must make it impossible for falsehood, 
misrepresentation and abuse to be the determin- 
ing factors in elections. What is needed is 
truth, not denunciation; clear thinking, and 
honest utterances, not muddy anger and distor- 
tion of facts. The present system gives power 
to those who are poisoners of the springs from 
which the people must drink. To rid the nation 
of these public enemies, by removing their op- 
portunity, so that the springs may be pure and 
wholesome, will be the boon beyond all others to 
America and it will rid the nation of the menace 
of the ** sleeping'' voter. 



98 The Community Capitol. 

There are those who advocate compulsory 
voting to end the indifference of citizens. Such 
a plan is both unfair and dangerous. The gov- 
ernment has no right to penalize a man for not 
voting, when he has no interest and no methods 
have been furnished him by which he could se- 
cure the accurate knowledge, from all-sided dis- 
cussion, on which to base interest. If, without 
the interest which comes from a sense of mutual 
responsibility, he could be compelled to vote, 
his ballot would simply add one more to the side 
of misgovernment and corruption. 

We have not had the participation in govern- 
ment which democracy demands, because of 
lack of organization at the grass roots. It can- 
not be said that democracy has failed, for de- 
mocracy is government directly responsible to 
the people and this has never been tried. Our 
trouble has not been too much liberty, as some 
critics assert, but a want of liberty to men to 
secure the agreement of their wills for the com- 
mon cause. 

There can be no sovereignty of the people un- 
less the people have full and fair opportunity to 
formulate their sovereign will, so that they may 
control legislation and public policy. Organ- 
ized in their local communities, ready to meet 
in orderly fashion every new question, the peo- 
ple may say indeed to every public official as 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 99 

did the Cortez of old to every new King of 
Aragon, '*We, who are as good as you, salute 
you.'* 

This organized citizenship will prove at once 
that politics is not a synonym for primary or 
general election, but instead is the science of 
government. The people will be organized to 
demand guarantees of character, capacity and 
proper policy from candidates, and they will 
also be able to enforce the responsibility of pub- 
lic officials. The idea of official responsibility 
to an unorganized citizenship is a fallacy. As 
a matter of fact, most actions of public officials 
are so mixed up with party politics that they are 
really responsibilities of the party and are so 
regarded. 

At present, too many officials are like the 
Member of Congress, to whom it was remarked 
that his constituents could not understand his 
speech on the Federal Reserve Act. *^ That's 
good," was his reply, ^4t took me seven days to 
write it that way.'' It is told of Senator Aid- 
rich that he gave strict instructions to his 
secretary to give no answers to embarrassing 
questions when he was not at hand to corrobo- 
rate or deny. One day a visitor came into the 
office and asked if he might secure certain in- 
formation. The secretary told him that he 
would have to wait for the Senator's return. 



100 The Community Capitol. 

*^But," insisted the visitor, ^'I only wished to 
ask Senator Aldrich's initials.'' The secre- 
tary pondered awhile, pulled down the shade, 
coughed slightly and after much hesitancy re- 
plied, ^'I do not care, my dear sir, to answer 
that question. I shall be obliged to refer you 
to the Senator himself for such information. ' ' 

Now, of course every public official should be 
personally responsible to his constituents in 
governmental matters and every individual ac- 
tivity or influence of every official is a proper 
subject for the closest public scrutiny. Holders 
of a public mandate should not be permitted to 
hide behind the mask of party, neither should 
they be permitted to become victims of party 
tyranny. 

The faithful public official is robbed of his 
greatest right when he does not receive the 
mutual cooperation of his constituents. The 
encouragement of the people for honorable and 
efficient service is his highest compensation. 
Few men can live and grow outside the sunshine 
of public favor. There should be a League of 
Appreciation for faithful officials but no club or 
society or group fellowship of any kind can be- 
come that league; it must be the league of all 
the people. 

Former Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. 
Lane, in an address to the student body at Wil- 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 101 

liams College forcibly presented the importance 
of public appreciation of faithful service, when 
he said: 

*^If democracy is to be a success, we must 
stimulate in every possible way the courage, the 
constructiveness and sober wisdom of our offi- 
cials. Honesty is not a rare virtue in public 
men, but courage is, because men soon find that 
by a conciliation of antagonistic forces they go 
far. The ^^pussyfooter," the evader, the re- 
sponsibility shirker, the passer of the buck in 
ordinary times, is a successful man in politics. 
And when society finds a man who shows nerve 
he should be promoted. ' ' 

How can the people show appreciation unless 
they know the records of their agents, and how 
can the people know their records unless they 
are organized into citizenship assemblies? Yet 
the need of watching all public officials is one 
of the supreme needs in a government by the 
people. Old John Dickerson was right when, 
more than a century ago, he said: 

^^Let us take care of every man in office and 
keep watchful eyes upon him. We should be 
better served if this vigilance were more gen- 
eral. Let his behaviour be publicly and pri- 
vately canvassed. Let us demonstrate that we 
mean the common weal and not the gratifica- 
tions of ill nature. The public is interested in 



102 The Community Capitol. 

its servants. No virtues, no services, should 
exempt them from such scrutinies. It is not 
only the right, it is the duty of the public to 
make them. Liberty has been often greatly 
suppressed by a disuse of this right, by a neglect 
of this duty and those who have been guilty of 
this carelessness have betrayed their posterity. ' ' 

Organized Citizenship is Essential. 

One thing is assured. If there is to be indi- 
vidual responsibility for individual acts on the 
part of the public officials, there must be an 
organized citizenship, one that can secure agree- 
ment previous to primaries and elections and 
then enforce continuous and unceasing responsi- 
bility afterwards. Without such organization 
it is little wonder that public officials, seeing 
that the people fail to follow their actions, come 
in time to look upon the machinery of govern- 
ment as their own private property. 

With the body of the citizens organized in 
units of neighborhood, there will be the League 
of Appreciation and there will also be the 
League of Punishment when it is needed. With 
such organization it will be clearly seen that 
there is too much election in our politics. Bal- 
lots containing the names of a hundred or more 
candidates, each of whom, when elected, passes 
beyond direct control of the people, are a trav- 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 103 

esty upon democracy. It is making the elective 
principle a weapon to be used destructively 
against the very thing it is supposed to advance, 
the power of the people. 

When organized public opinion has control, 
through all-inclusive community organization^ 
we may well forego so many elections of so 
many officials and let public opinion perform its 
real task, that of supervising and controlling the 
organs of government. 

The great outstanding need in American 
politics to-day is the establishment of direct 
control by the people, which is only possible 
through direct contact between the individual 
citizen, associated with his neighbors, and his 
agents in public office. This is a matter of vital 
public interest. We have tried entrusting this 
public interest to the private interests of party 
organizations, whose sole legitimate function is 
to organize public opinion, and we have found 
that they have instead created a party opinion, 
against which the real public opinion must or- 
ganize and fight. 

It is time to recognize that the government 
itself, the sole representative of the public 
interest, must take full and complete responsi- 
bility for all proceedings in which the electors 
formulate and express their views of candidates 
and measures. Government cannot form men's 



104 The Community Capitol. 



1 



minds, but it can and should assure a fair chance 
to every citizen to make up his mind on all mat- 
ters connected with government, in conjunction 
with his fellow-citizens and in the light of all 
the facts. 

That means that it must be considered a mat- 
ter of right that the adult citizens of any com- 
munity in America shall use their own capitol, 
the public school building for all matters per- 
taining to the community welfare and the public 
good. 

It means that the community secretary, 
chosen by these citizens in regular assembly 
shall be a public official, paid from public funds. 

It means that political parties and candidates 
for public office shall forward their claims for 
consideration through these community organi- 
zations, where Republicans, Democrats, Social- 
ists, and all the rest are considering the common 
welfare as citizens and neighbors. 

It means that the vast expenditures of money 
in elections, which have shamed us as a people 
in the past, will be rendered useless. The Wall 
Street Journal points out that since 1860 the 
candidate with the largest campaign fund has 
won out, with the single exception of the contest 
of 1916. Four dollars out of every five ex- 
pended in the elections have been for the os- 
tensible purpose of organization of the voters. 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 105 

The state, county and local headquarters, the 
political meetings with brass bands and red fire, 
the indexing and classifying of voters; these 
take the millions of campaign contributions. 
When the citizenship of America's fifty thou- 
sand neighborhoods are organized for discussion 
and deliberation, there is furnished the very 
organization which parties and candidates have 
been compelled to attempt in one-sided fashion. 
Then such expenditures on the part of private 
interests will be rendered useless and will be 
outlawed, a result which is the essence of com- 
mon sense, since the people who raise slush 
funds to-day for their favorites, are not con- 
tributing; they are investing and they expect 
to receive thousandfold dividends in special 
favors at the expense of all the people. 

It means, too, that public opinion will occupy 
its rightful place as the dominant force through 
complete and continuous information as to all 
aifairs of government. There will be an official 
bulletin, issued through public agencies, by 
which to ' ' feed the famished folks facts. ' ' This 
bulletin will give the summary of official action 
by agents of the people and will furnish the 
means through which the messages of parties 
and candidates can be taken direct to the people. 

Such a program will require the expenditure 
of public funds, but it would be far more eco- 



106 The Community Capitol. 

nomical for the taxpayers to pay directly the 
cost of political campaigns, even at the present 
immense scale of expenditure, than to pay it in- 
directly as they do to-day. The most expensive 
government in the world is that managed by the 
privileged few. Political *^ machines'^ always 
squander public money recklessly. The prac- 
tice in efficient citizenship through community 
organization will be worth a thousand times 
more than it costs. 

The additional taxation required from local 
and federal sources to pay compensation to the 
community secretaries and to establish the 
Official Bulletin, would be saved many times 
over through the elimination of present duplica- 
tions. It is not a departure from the path we 
have found good in the past for we have already 
recognized political parties as legal entities and 
have sought to control them. This is but the 
next and final step in the process. 

Not many years ago, it was the duty of the 
candidate, or the party, to print and distribute 
the ballots. This required a large number of 
agents, hired at great expense and opened the 
door to flagrant debauchery. It proved impos- 
sible for a new party or an independent candi- 
date, without large financial resources, to enter 
the field at all. 

Then the government stepped in and took 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 107 

over the printing and distribution of the ballots, 
at public expense. The cost to the taxpayers in 
a national election, is many millions of dollars, 
but no believer in American ideals would advo- 
cate a return to conditions which prevailed 
prior to the adoption of the Australian ballot 
system. 

Still, we have not reached the desired goal. 
Our journey in the pathway of democracy has 
led us back to the point from which we started. 
Like persons lost in the fog, we have walked in a 
circle. 

In the preconvention campaign in the presi- 
dential election of 1920, we saw the dilemma 
which inevitably comes upon us through the 
present system. Either it is true that the can- 
didate with the largest campaign fund to expend 
must be successful, or we must deny the sover- 
eign right of the people to select their own can- 
didates. 

This situation is the logical and assured re- 
sult of an unorganized citizenship. The remedy 
is to end the separation between society and 
politics, to annul the divorce between the com- 
munity and government, through establishment 
of the people's head-and-heart quarters in the 
neighborhoods of America. 



108 The Community Capitol. 

The Public Reinvested With Powee. 

Then the citizens will be reinvested with their 
power over the commonwealth. It will be no 
longer possible for a few men to take such con- 
trol of party machinery that they may rob citi- 
zens of their convictions or drive men to act 
against the public welfare. Then men in public 
place will assume the responsibility attaching 
to their offices for their responsibility will be 
enforced by public control. Then men of ideas, 
conviction and character will make their appeal 
direct to the people and will be loyally sup- 
ported, while the colorless, weak, easily man- 
aged men, who are always favorites of the party 
^ * machine ^ ' will be made unavailable. Then the 
object of the democracy, *Hhe greatest happi- 
ness of the greatest number'' will be accom- 
plished by the surest method the mind of a man 
can conceive, the getting together of all the peo- 
ple so that their uncontrolled judgment may 
prevail. 

This organization of the citizenship, with 
permanent headquarters in the public school 
house, opens the door for fulfillment of the pos- 
sibilities of every tool of democracy. A few 
years ago the most widely heralded features 
in experimental politics were the Initiative, 
Referendum and Recall. Every believer in 
fundamental democracy gave these methods of 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 109 

direct legislation his hearty support. Their 
purpose was to enable the people, over the heads 
of the lawmaking body, if necessary, to initiate 
good laws, reject bad laws or recall an unworthy 
public official. 

However, in spite of the fact that many states 
have adopted the I. R. R. in response to a public 
demand, not to be thwarted, the results have not 
been all that were desired. This was not due 
to any defect of purpose, for these measures are 
resistlessly logical applications of the right of 
the people to rule. But actual operation shows 
that it is a difficult task to secure sufficient bona 
fide signatures of electors for action upon meas- 
ures or elected officials. 

In most of the states having these laws it re- 
quires from 8% to 10% of voters to sign the 
petition for the Initiative or Referendum and 
25% of the voters to institute the operation of 
the Recall. It is of course necessary that there 
be sufficient names required to prove a genuine 
public interest. 

Securing these signatures has been the bete 
noir of the enthusiasts for direct legislation. 
After the novelty has worn off, the task of se- 
curing the names necessary has been a difficult 
one where the public interest was alone to be 
served. Special interests were able to secure 
the names required by sending out paid agents. 



110 The Community Capitol. 

who received a fixed sum for each signature. 
In some states, salesmen and agents of various 
kinds have given up their own vocations to be- 
come ^^signature-getters/' a business which 
brings them a larger compensation. 

Out of the experience of ten years, in many 
states, comes the vital fact that there must be 
primary organization of the people if these laws 
are to be productive of the results desired. 
With every community organized into a little 
democracy in the school house capitol, with a 
publicly paid secretary, acting under the direc- 
tion of the citizenship, the last connecting link 
is placed in the chain of people's rule. 

Then the Initiative, Eeferendum or Eecall 
petition comes before the assembly as a part of 
the public business. Full and free discussion 
takes place and each proposal is debated. It is 
then the duty of the community secretary to re- 
ceive the signatures of those who are convinced 
of the wisdom of the proposal. There is no 
charge connected with this service, yet it is 
done far more efficiently than through '^profes- 
sional signature-getters, ' ' and measures for the 
public welfare have the advantage over special 
privilege plots and plans. 

This community organization will mean the 
fulfillment of the representative principle of 
government. Real representative government 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. Ill 

never means giving to a set of agents complete 
control, with no power on the part of the prin- 
cipals to consider and review their acts. There 
is but one way to have representative govern- 
ment in America and that is for the people to 
have control of their representatives. Any 
business man who gave an irrevocable power of 
attorney to his agents every two or four years 
would soon see his business vanish and his 
property taken over bodily by his hired men. 
That is exactly what has happened in govern- 
ment. The servants have taken advantage of 
the complete lack of supervision and have 
grown accustomed to giving orders to their mas- 
ters. They have foisted upon America the 
superstitition that government is something 
above and apart from the citizen, a sovereign 
which can do as it likes with the life and prop- 
erty of the individual. They have made the 
political party a kind of military organization, 
with themselves as officers, the one duty of the 
rank and file being to obey their commands. 

One of the most deadly blows ever struck at 
representative government in this country was 
the expulsion by the New York legislature of 
five regularly elected members, because of their 
political opinions. Unless the people can make 
any changes in government they desire through 
ballots, they are driven to attempt them through 



112 The Community Capitol. 

bullets. Every sane American knows that such 
actions tend to Mexicanize the government. 
Yet, with such an incitement to violence and 
lawlessness, pending for many weeks in the law- 
making body of New York, there was no way for 
the people of New York to cry ^^Hold" to their 
power-embezzling agents. Former Supreme 
Justice Hughes and other eminent citizens did 
everything possible to prevent the dangerous 
act, but as individuals, however eminent, they 
were scorned. The fundamental principle of 
representative government was violated, law- 
makers became lawbreakers, but the whole peo- 
ple of New York, who were thus dishonored 
and betrayed, were unorganized, inarticulate, 
helpless. 

It is time to return to true representative 
government with full recognition of the fact 
that representatives of the people in public 
office are servants, to be honored when they 
faithfully represent the people and to be dis- 
honorably discharged from service when they 
prove traitors to the public will. 

Organization Will Bring Power to People. 

The only method for the people to secure this 
power, an inherent right in a democracy, is 
citizenship-organization for effective action be- 
tween elections as well as at elections. Then 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 113 

the people will not be forced to the timidity of 
the old farmer who entered the morgue in 
Kansas City and asked the man at the desk 
whether the body of the Honorable Jesse James 
was there. The attendant answered that he 
did not know any ^ ' Honorable ' ^ Jesse James 
but that the noted outlaw Jesse James had been 
killed the day before and his body Avas on a slab 
out in the morgue room. The old man walked 
out, pulled down the blanket and satisfied him- 
self that it was really the notorious highway- 
man. He was walking out without a word when 
the attendant asked him why he had used the 
title ^'Honorable'' in speaking of such a des- 
perado. He explained, ''That blankety blank 
outlaw held me up once but I wanted to be all- 
fired sure he was dead before I called him what 
I wanted to.'' 

Will this organization of the people in com- 
munity assemblies destroy the parties'? No, it 
will destroy the ''machine'' with its grimy and 
slimy record of public betrayal, but it will give 
the parties their true place in a free govern- 
ment. It will make party leaders and public 
ofiicials responsible because they are responsive 
and representative, because they reflect the 
definite formulation of the people 's will. 

The party will establish a laboratory for 
social research and will constitute a general 



114 The Community Capitol. 

clearing house for accurate and scientific infor- 
mation. Its findings on every phase of its plat- 
form will be used to advance the party as the 
vehicle for accomplishing the ends desired by 
the people. 

To-day there are numberless disorganized, 
separate investigations being made, with little 
correlation with law-making bodies, or the needs 
of the public. Let the party undertake the ob- 
serving, recording and verifying of all data 
dealing with the problems and needs of America. 
Let the party assemble the experience of law- 
making bodies and administrative officials in 
this and other lands and place the facts before 
the people and their representatives. Let it 
organize a speaker's bureau for year-round 
service and publications which will stand the 
veracity test in neighborhood assemblies. 

Such an organization of the party, running 
every day of the year, will furnish outlet for the 
energies of all who desire to serve the nation, 
while at the same time advancing the party 
interest. The old political headquarters, where 
politicians gather to arrange jobs for which the 
people will pay, will go, but in its place will be 
open headquarters in the capitols of the people, 
where men and women meet regularly to dis- 
cuss political issues and social and economic 
questions and where one need not be ashamed to 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 115 

speak openly of party policies. Then the party 
platform must of necessity be more than ^* honey 
to catch flies'^ and it will be known before elec- 
tion that a victory for a certain party means the 
triumph of the ideas expressed in the party 
platform. Then the people will say and have 
power to enforce the saying, **Come to us be- 
fore we go to you.'' Then the only straight 
ticket which any American will feel justified in 
voting will be the straight ticket with all the 
crooked names scratched oif . Then the party 
advocate will not talk as if his candidate were 
an infallible, Omnipotent being, while the oppo- 
sition candidate is a degraded, disreputable out- 
cast. Then the intelligence of the community 
will instinctively revolt against bunk and the 
peanut politician will give way to efficient, 
trained men to perform the tasks of the people. 

The successful political party of to-morrow 
must meet new conditions with new methods. It 
must have accurate information for the citizens 
who say, ^*I want to know." It must furnish 
real opportunities for service to high-minded 
men and women. It must make its appeal to 
the individual through his cooperation with his 
neighbors and it will need public confidence if 
it is to live, much less win victories. 

There will be no backward steps. The right 
of the Womanhood of America to express her 



116 The Community Capitol. 

will at the ballot box is an established fact. It 
means the promotion of political education in 
the better sense and means new ideals in politics. 
In spite of every attack by reactionaries upon 
the direct primary already established in par- 
tial form, we are going to have sensible presi- 
dential primaries, where candidates for Presi- 
dent will be chosen by direct vote of the people, 
on the same day in every state of the Union. 
We are going to have a Corrupt Practices Act 
to limit campaign expenditures and prevent the 
plunderbund and the ^ ' machine ' ' from carrying 
on their unholy alliance against the public good. 
These reforms are assured. And if we are 
wise, we will realize now that their purpose will 
only be fulfilled by provision for the organiza- 
tion of the American citizenship for delibera- 
tion as well as decision. The new woman voters 
must be made members of the nation. For in- 
telligent use of the ballot at primary and 
general election there must be the previous 
agreement which comes from mutual conference. 
To eliminate the necessity for huge campaign 
funds and to prevent special interests from 
financing campaigns, there must be organiza- 
tion of the people outside of party relations, 
where error is dangerless, because truth has a 
free field in which to combat it. Only thus may 
be accomplished what President Garfield said 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 117 

was the political end most needed in America 
*^Not how to avoid the existence of parties, but 
how to keep them within proper bounds.'' 
Then in the conflict of parties, the result will be 
the survival and success, not of the mightiest 
in money and ^* machine,'' but the survival of 
the fittest to serve America. 

Community Capitols Doom Political Evils. 

Every evil in our present system of politics 
may be cured by all-inclusive community organ- 
ization of the American people, which is true 
and consistent democracy. Visualize 50,000 
communities, meeting in their neighborhood 
Capitols. The one question before them all is, 
** What steps can we take right now for the good 
of our community, our city, our state and our 
nation!" Every selfish class proposal must 
meet the acid test of the public interest. Then 
the whole people will look at their problems 
with the direct interest which has prevailed 
among groups. In 1912, President Neil Bon- 
ner, of the National Eetail Liquor Dealers 
Association, issued this appeal : 

**Now, Gentlemen, watch out for your candi- 
dates for election. Get busy and learn how the 
men stand with you. Study those who want to 
go to Congress, senate and assembly. Put them 
on record. I want you liquor men to be liquor 



118 The Community Capitol. 

men first and politicians afterwards. Forget 
that you are a Democrat, a Republican, or a 
Progressive. Select the men who will be fair 
and will represent you and not the political 
party. ' ' 

This is the group consciousness of Bolshevism 
with a vengeance. No such appeal can be suc- 
cessful when Americans meet shoulder to shoul- 
der in their community house as citizens and 
neighbors. With the people gathered for com- 
mon counsel, such appeals will be taken at their 
real value and there will come a wrestling with 
concrete problems, out of which will come the 
quickening of American political life, so ar- 
dently desired by all patriots. 

With such means for enforcing responsibility 
in their hands, the preventitive power of public 
opinion becomes a fact. Then the authority of 
the people will not only go back of the ballot but 
beyond the ballot. The ^ ^ wheels within wheels ' ' 
system of parliamentary procedure, in Congress 
and legislature, which divides and diffuses re- 
sponsibility, until it is impossible for the people 
to &x the blame for sins of omission and com- 
mission, will be forced to give way to a business- 
like procedure, out in the open. With the 
people's organized gaze fixed squarely on law- 
making bodies, the checks and balances which 
now checkmate the people, must give way to 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 119 

prompt action. Committee room doors will fly 
open for the sunshine of publicity to enter and 
records of legislators will be made where they 
can be weighed and considered by those whom 
they represent. 

Such organization will mean efficiency in 
government. The great outcry for a budget 
system to coordinate governmental receipts and 
expenditures is a demand for a halfway meas- 
ure, for it loses much of its value unless there 
is provided a method for efficient review by the 
public. Economy and efficiency in government 
will be irridescent dreams until the people who 
foot the bills have the controlling voice. 

There are 39 separate governmental agencies 
to-day handling engineering and building func- 
tions, all of related kinds. There are 26 govern- 
mental agencies at Washington engaged in 
surveying and mapping. There are 16 agencies 
authorized to build roads. There are 16 sepa- 
rate bureaus doing work on rivers and the 
duplications are found everywhere in the Na- 
tional Government. If you were to shoot a fox 
in Alaska, you must make settlement with the 
Department of Agriculture, but if you trapped 
the same fox, the settlement would go through 
the Department of Commerce. Such ridiculous 
duplication means the useless expenditure of 
millions of dollars every year. The budget 



120 The Community Capitol. 

system may mean that all these agencies will 
operate efficiently; what is needed is the elimi- 
nation of most of them and the combination of 
their functions into one operating unit. 

This fundamental reform will never be ef- 
fected until the people, who now pay the ex- 
penses of government largely through direct 
taxation, are organized for effective action. 
Once they know the facts, they may be trusted 
to lop off the worse than useless excrescences of 
government, which have been bulking larger 
each year since the establishment of the govern- 
ment. 4 

Public officials cannot do this work under 
present party systems and conditions. The 
people can. There are two kinds of intelli- 
gence ; the trained, technical intelligence that is 
master of details and the intelligence that knows 
exactly what it desires but can only express 
broadly and generally the way to get it. The 
engineer in the cab represents the first ; the pas- 
senger riding in the train to his desired destina- 
tion represents the second. 

The people as a whole may not possess the 
technical knowledge to work out every detail of 
legislation they desire and that task is meant 
for their hired men, trained for such duties. 
But the people do know that a vast number of 
boards and commissions, bureaus, and divisions 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 121 

performing the same functions, means duplica- 
tion, waste and extravagance. They will sup- 
plement the budget system with common sense 
organization, once they are in position to say 
with effect what they want. 

Make no mistake. The people are safe and 
sane and honest and intelligent. Lincoln was 
eternally right when he said, ^^ There is no 
better nor equal hope in the world. Most gov- 
ernments are based, primarily on the denial of 
equal rights. They said, ^some men are too 
ignorant and vicious to share in government.' 
^Possibly so,' said we, ^and by your system you 
would always keep them ignorant and vicious. 
We purpose to give them a chance and we ex- 
pect the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant 
wiser, and all better and happier together. ' ' ' 

Acting together, the people will never deprive 
any person of just rights. With the right of 
full and free discussion they are worthier of 
confidence than any individuals, possessed of 
passing power. As Justice Charles E. Hughes 
well said, ' ^ The only thing you can depend on in 
this country is the judgment of the people, after 
full discussion." The wisest statesmanship to- 
day is to help the people organize for that full 
discussion and then trust them, the good and the 
bad, the wise and the ignorant, to solve Amer- 
ican problems. 



122 The Community Capitol. 

* ' Composite Citizen ' ' Can Solve All Peoblems, 
Great questions are pressing for solution but 
not one of them is too big for the composite 
American citizen, who is wiser, more self- 
reliant, virile and capable than President or | 
Congress or court. The problems of the League 
of Nations, government ownership, tariff, trusts, 
health protection, national education, taxation, 
army and navy, universal training, relations of 
capital and labor, immigration, conservation of 
resources, soldiers' compensation and all the 
others may best be solved by Americans gath- 
ered together for mutual counsel. They will 
make blunders, at times, but not so many as 
despotic officials and the best remedy for mis- 
takes through passion, prejudice and fickleness 
is opportunity for free discussion by self-gov- 
erning individuals in a self-governing com- 
munity. 

The nation should see to it that such oppor- 
tunity for mutual counsel is enjoyed by every 
citizen as a matter of national security. The 
nation has a right to exist ; it has a right to a 
vigorous, efficient existence. These rights mean 
that every American has a place in the brother- 
hood, that he has a right to membership in 
America, to feel a personal, vital interest in 
American progress and prosperity. 

There is a great, undeveloped capacity for 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 123 

self-government in America ; there is a willing- 
ness in the average citizen to cooperate heartily 
in any effort which appeals to his intelligence 
as a direct means for the betterment of his com- 
munity and nation. That capacity and that 
willingness may be developed and harnessed by 
entrusting every community with responsibility 
and power. 

C. E. Grundish, in his little poem *^ Drift- 
wood'' shows what the qualities that made for 
heroic service ^^Over There'' degenerate into 
^^Over Here," amid neglect and doors to serv- 
ice closed and barred. 

I am the city's driftwood — the scum. 

Look at me, hollow-eyed, sad-mouthed, melancholy, 
impulsive. 

Dreamer of crude dreams, wild of speech, reckless of 
life. 

I am the failure, the misfit, the fool. 

I am the haunter of parks, the curser of creeds. Des- 
tiny 's jester. 

I am the drifter. 

Yet, somewhere I have a Croix de Guerre, and my 

Buddie, 
Hollow-eyed, sad-mouthed, melancholy, impulsive, like 

myself. 
Sleeps in Flanders' Fields. 

It is folly to fail to make use of the ability 
which now wastes its fragrance on the desert 
air, but it is more than that. It is dangerous to 



124 The Community Capitol. 

dam up the channels of men's rightful activities 
in the conduct of government. The drawing 
apart into opposing groups of poor and rich, 
capitalist and worker, Catholic and Protestant 
and the jungle warfare which ensues, summons 
America to act or perish. The citizen-mass be- 
comes a dangerous compound, ready to explode 
at a touch. The disinherited seize the torch 
and dynamite, and anarchy triumphs over or- 
derly government. 

Under all-inclusive community organization, 
the means is found to reconcile the members of 
the community and weaken these ties that bind 
men into minor groups, by opening the channels 
for universal participation in the greatest inter- 
est, the common welfare. It will create an 
environment of mutual understanding and good 
will between the races, classes and creeds that 
make up our common life. It will merge the 
class and clan spirit into the community spirit. 
It will cure the distrust of representatives by 
making public officials responsible and re- 
sponsive. It will furnish a place where those 
who have grievances are invited to voice them 
before their neighbors so that they may meet 
the test of all-sided consideration. It will end 
the repression which is the seed of revolution. 
It will make citizens eager to join in one com- 
mon effort to make real the bright promises of 



Back of the Ballot — and Beyond. 125 

the American form of government, to afford to 
every citizen an unfettered start and a fair 
chance in the race of life. 

The community capitol furnishes the way out 
of the present political labyrinth. It is a fac- 
tory of good citizenship. It is a furnace in 
which a score of nationalities is fused into one 
red-blooded, American citizenship. It is a 
power plant of patriotism. It is a quarry, 
wherein are wrought foundation stones for the 
Temple of the Republic. It is a fraternity to 
bind East and West and North and South to- 
gether. It is the triumph of coordination and 
cooperation sought in five thousand years of 
warfare against tyranny and anarchy. It is a 
guarantee that free government shall not perish 
from the earth. It is a lighthouse of liberty. 
It is a guard around American institutions and 
American rights. It is the heart of America. 

The community capitol accomplishes the goal 
toward which all rightful endeavor leads — ^un- 
derstanding between man and man. It makes 
sure of more of the Golden Eule and less of the 
rule of gold. It makes possible the successful 
struggle of humanity against the oppression of 
plutocracy. It is the means by which all Amer- 
icans may have equal rights, with special privi- 
leges to none. It makes possible the effective 
recognition that workers are more valuable than 



126 The Community Capitol. 

workshops, miners mightier than mines, men 
holier than machines and people greater than 
possessions. It is a reconciliation, a reaffirma- 
tion, a restoration and a recovery of that democ- 
racy on which all our institutions are founded. 

The community capitol makes real the reli- 
gion of democracy, the religion of *^ peace on 
earth, good will to men. ' ' The voice of the peo- 
ple, no longer throttled and fettered by division, 
becomes indeed the voice of God. It gives all 
of us the right to make of our mistakes, ladders 
instead of millstones, as we work out through 
neighborly counsel and mutual help the steps by 
which America, torchbearer of the world, may 
follow that Progress, which is the ^* onward 
stride of Almighty God.*' 



Part III 
Food Products from Farm to Pantry 






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III. 

FOOD PEODUCTS FROM FARM TO 
PANTRY. 

In a majority of American homes the high 
cost of living is still a tragedy. The prices of 
the necessaries of life have been skyrocketed 
until they have become luxuries to many per- 
sons. During the Great War it was considered 
patriotic to accept the mounting costs of food 
with a smile and the remark, ^^It's the war. It 
will be all right afterwards. ' ' But afterwards 
is here. The boys are back but reasonable 
prices are not. Amidst disorganization of in- 
dustry and deflation of credit, the consumer suf- 
fers extortion. 

We speak about cold figures. The figures of 
the retail price lists of food supplies are flaming 
hot and gleam red in the eyes of every man to 
whom they mean privation and suffering for 
himself and those dependent on him. Wage- 
earners and persons with fixed incomes are 
crushed beneath this burden. To them the high 
cost of living is but another name for low wages. 
The amount of pay received is not half so im- 
portant as the amount of things it will buy. 

9 129 



130 The Community Capitol. 

Though money income is increased, if it does 
not keep pace with the rising cost of living, real 
wages have been reduced. 

That has been the situation. The Bureau of 
Labor Statistics shows that union wages were 
increased 39% from 1913 to 1919, while retail 
prices of food jumped 88% during the same 
period. That means that the man who received 
a dollar in wages in 1913 only received 69 cents 
in 1919. These figures are based on union wage- 
earners alone and do not cover unorganized 
labor nor persons receiving fixed salaries, who 
are always the greatest sufferers from such con- 
ditions. It is a startling fact and one full of 
menace, that with all the widely-heralded in- 
creases in wages, the average man in America 
received less in 1920 than he did in 1913. 

Such a condition means danger. The logical 
result is a lower standard of living, less food, a 
poorer home, a drearier life. There is priva- 
tion for the children, those upon whom the 
nation's future rests. They are being dwarfed 
in development at life's threshold, when abun- 
dant food is essential to healthy growth. 

If such conditions continue, America will wit- 
ness the sight of desperate men taking a rag for 
a banner and fighting under it with red rage in 
their hearts. Hunger knows no reason and no 
patriotism. If we will not face the facts from 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 131 

the standpoint of justice and the common good, 
we will be compelled to face them from the 
standpoint of fear. We will reach the day of 
which it is written : 

When the land is young no longer but grown old in 

chronic sins, 
When the strife of class with masses, both for bread 

and breath begins, 
When the poor shall swarm with riot and the magic 

cheeks of trade 
Stretch between the hungry workman and the work 

his hands have made, 
When the social vultures thicken and the strong the 

weak devour, 
When the corpses of the people strew the pathways up 

to power, 
When blind faction sends her foxes blazing through 

the standing corn. 
From the firebrands of the furies who shall save our 

land, forlorn? 

What is the reason for this intolerable situa- 
tion! Has the Almighty failed to provide for 
the sons and daughters of America! Has fam- 
ine come upon us because our fields and valleys 
have failed to give forth their increase! Is 
there not food enough produced in America for 
the people of America! 

Here and there are voices raising a hue and 
cry for more production and shouting that lack 
of output is the cause of all our woes. In al- 
most every instance, they are distorters of the 
issue, having evil purposes to serve and vio- 



132 The Community Capitol. 

lators of right to protect. Everyone admits 
that greater production is important but it is 
false to say that it will solve the problem. Far 
more important is the just distribution of the 
food now produced. Thomas A. Edison has 
said : ^ ^ Selling cost is outrageously high. Pro- 
duction cost is often small beside it. Now, why 
not put more inventive genius to work upon the 
big problems of distribution f 

It is a timely query, for Edison himself and 
the other stellar lights of science have been 
efficiently engaged on the tasks of production 
and have perfected marvels of machinery which 
do the work of ten thousand men. They have 
made the iron in the mountains into myriad- 
wheeled engines of industry for the production 
of the necessaries of life. They have taken 
products that formerly went to waste and have 
made of them valuable commodities for the use 
of men. 

That work has been well done. With the 
tractor and self-binder and the labor-saving in- 
ventions which have revolutionized agricultural 
industry, there has come a tremendous increase 
in the production of food supplies. 

Think of 940,987,000 bushels of wheat pro- 
duced in 1919, when the average production for 
the years of 1913 to 1917 was 790,634,000. That 
means an increase of seven and a half bushels 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 133 

for every family in America, during a time 
when the price of the loaf of bread was climbing 
steadily, every cent added meaning an addition 
of $320,000,000 to the bread bill of the country. 

Think of 2,917,450,000 bushels of corn pro- 
duced in 1919, when the average production for 
the years 1913 to 1917 was less by 170,000,000 
bushels. Think of an additional production of 
10,000,000 bushels of rice ; 35,000,000 bushels of 
sweet potatoes ; 2,000,000 bushels of buckwheat 
and other crops exceeding the average produc- 
tion during the period when prices were going 
to unheard of heights. 

Think of 23,747,000 milk cows in America on 
January 1, 1920, when there were 20,497,000 in 
1913, the increase alone meaning that there was 
an additional milk cow for every seven families 
in the land. There was an increase of more 
than eight million other cattle during that 
period. There was an increase of twelve mil- 
lion swine. 

DiSTKIBUTION THE CaUSE OF HiGH CoSTS. 

We are producing more meat and other food 
supplies per capita to-day than we did twenty 
years ago. We produce more food but eat less. 
Production has been perfected while the more 
important problems of distribution have been 
neglected and the entire system of distribution 



134 The Community Capitol. 

allowed to grow into one depending upon the 
erratic machinations of those whose sole aim is 
to exact profits for themselves, instead of the 
efficient handling of the nation's food supply. 
The cost of distribution makes up a large part 
of the price of food and we can't eat the dis- 
tribution. 

There is the heart of the problem. There is 
no physical reason for the intolerable high cost 
of living. It is due primarily to an infamous 
and indefensible system of distribution. 

The investigation of the Federal Trade Com- 
mission into food prices shows clearly the in- 
sane system which now prevails. In its report 
issued June 30, 1919, the Commission shows that 
there is a vast number of dealers along the chan- 
nels of distribution between producers and 
consumers, many of them serving no useful 
function. There are distributors, agents, coun- 
try collectors, brokers, commission men, whole- 
salers, jobbers, retailers. Everywhere along 
the line are speculators, gambling on the prices 
of food. 

To-day it takes from two to ten men to dis- 
tribute the food supplies produced by one man. 
The number of distributors has been multiply- 
ing rapidly during recent years. In the decade 
1870 to 1880, 3% of the population of the United 
States was engaged in distribution, or about one 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 135 

person for every 31 individuals. In the decade 
1900 to 1910, more than 6% of the entire popu- 
lation was engaged in distribution which means 
that there was a distributor for every fifteen 
persons. To-day, every three families in Amer- 
ica support another family engaged in dis- 
tributing the supplies necessary for existence. 

The present system is highly organized for 
self -perpetuation. Former Governor Hanly, of 
Indiana, in describing conditions in Indian- 
apolis, stated facts which apply to every city in 
America. He said: 

*^ Garden products are produced within the 
immediate vicinity in quantities to supply the 
entire population, but the means of distribution 
are so entirely within the control of highly or- 
ganized bodies that the consumer is compelled 
to pay a price for every garden product, even in 
the height of the season, far beyond the value of 
the product, or what he would have to pay could 
he deal directly with the producer, or even 
through a single middleman, such as the grocer. 

**But grocers in the city are not permitted to 
purchase products direct from the producer. 
They are compelled to buy them from wholesale 
dealers and brokers. There is of course no law 
precluding the grocer from buying direct, but 
he is informed by the highly organized interests 
which control the supply in the main, that if he 



136 The Community Capitol. 

does so, they will cease to sell to him. In many 
instances that would leave him much of the time 
with insufficient supplies to meet his trade, so 
rather than incur such a risk and enter upon a 
war with the wholesale interests of the city, he 
accepts the decree, pays the price and passes it 
on to the consumer. ' ' 

This autocratic power is used to maintain 
the most wasteful and inefficient system it is 
possible to imagine. Food products are shipped 
across the continent from the point of produc- 
tion, and the district to which they are sent in 
turn ships out the same product, home grown, 
to distant points. For instance, white potatoes 
are grown in every state in the Union and are 
universally used. Arizona, the smallest pro- 
ducer in 1917, still produced 420,000 bushels, al- 
most sufficient for the needs of the state. There 
are very few districts in America which do not 
now produce the potatoes needed to supply all 
the local needs. Still, the Bureau of Markets 
shows that in the year 1917, the latest for which 
figures are available, 17,891 carloads of pota- 
toes were unloaded in New York City, some of 
them coming from California. Chicago re- 
ceived 9,537 carloads and they came from 41 
different states. Minneapolis received only 971 
carloads but they came from 29 different states. 

The facts show that Minnesota sent 1,194 car- 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 137 

loads of potatoes past Minneapolis to Chicago 
and sent 17 carloads to New York City, while 
sending only 428 carloads to its own market in 
Minneapolis. In other words, Minnesota could 
have supplied the people of the state with pota- 
toes easily. Instead of doing that, her pro- 
duction went out to distant points while 28 other 
states were sending potatoes to Minnesota. 
Illinois was shipping potatoes to Minnesota, 
while Minnesota was sending other tubers into 
Illinois. 

Then too. New York State shipped potatoes 
to Illinois while Illinois shipped her own home 
grown potatoes to New York. Maryland 
shipped 152 carloads to Chicago and only 60 
carloads to New York. Potatoes grown within 
twenty miles of Washington made the long 
journey to Chicago, while those produced in 
Michigan were sent to the Capitol City. 

Shipping System Chaotic. 

The map of distribution of all food supplies 
shows an utterly chaotic system, the shipping 
lines criss-crossing in haphazard fashion. Even 
the highly perishable product, strawberries, 
shows the same inefficient, reckless lack of sys- 
tem. One state sends her carloads out to dis- 
tant markets while the very states to which they 
go, send back equal quantities. 



138 The Community Capitol. 

New York State is the second greatest pro- 
ducer of apples in America. Still, 468,400 
bushels of apples from the far distant State of 
Washington were unloaded in New York City 
in 1917. At the same time many New York 
apples were sent to western states. The New 
York Commissioner of Foods and Markets has 
officially stated that not only in the case of 
apples, but also as to peaches, pears, potatoes 
and other farm products, the farmers just out- 
side New York City have been discriminated 
against and have been forced to seek their mar- 
kets in the South and West. 

It is no local situation; it is a nation-wide 
maladjustment. Pittsburgh receives white po- 
tatoes from 29 different states, sweet potatoes 
from 15, tomatoes from 20, cantaloupes from 25, 
apples from 23, peaches from 21 and straw- 
berries from 17. At the same time, Pennsyl- 
vania sends great quantities of these products 
to distant markets. Denver people eat the pota- 
toes from 15 different states, while Colorado 
ships 302 carloads to Chicago alone. Baltimore 
residents use the strawberries grown in 5 differ- 
ent states, while Maryland ships to Chicago and 
New York markets, 134 carloads of straw- 
berries. 

The cost of this woeful lack of system is ap- 
palling. The Interstate Commerce report for 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 139 

1916 shows that, during that year, the fruit and 
vegetables carried by the railroads of the coun- 
try, amounted to 41,392,796 tons, of which more 
than 23,000,000 tons were received from con- 
necting carriers. Every cent of unnecessary 
freight rates on food products is paid by the 
consumer. With additional rates being levied 
by the railroad companies, the price naturally 
mounts higher, and an increasing sum is taken 
out of the pockets of the people through this in- 
sane system of distribution. 

Nor is that all. The present system has led 
to a geographical specialization in prepared 
foods, which adds immensely to the costs. 
Peaches are produced in almost every state yet 
99% of all the dried peaches and 91% of all the 
canned peaches used by Americans, are pre- 
pared in California and must be shipped from 
that far-western state to all other markets. 
Four states produce 60% of all the canned 
pears in America; seven states produce 80% 
of all the canned tomatoes; six states produce 
80% of all the canned string beans ; seven states 
produce 85% of all the canned corn; Maryland 
produces more canned corn than either Illinois 
or Iowa, in the great corn belt. Six states pro- 
duce 90% of all the canned baked beans used in 
America; and Pennsylvania, with a compara- 



140 The Community Capitol. 

tively small home grown production, sends out 
more canned beans than any other state. 

When food supplies are sent great distances 
from the point of production, either for im- 
mediate use or for preparation through manu- 
facturing process, there is certain to be great 
waste of the products. It is estimated that 
fifty per cent of the entire production of fruits 
and vegetables rot and waste on the farm and in 
the orchard because of present marketing condi- 
tions. That means that the consumer must pay 
for half of the product what the whole cost to 
produce, beside the profit to the producer and 
the numberless agents in between. 

But aside from this waste of foodstuffs 
vitally needed by the people there are still 
others which are directly due to the system of 
shipping products out of one district to another, 
which in turn sends its products to other mar- 
kets. 

There are losses due to the use of containers 
for butter, eggs, fruit and other commodities 
which are too frail to withstand the numerous 
handlings necessary. There are great losses 
due to the products having been kept too long in 
the cars. One large dealer has estimated that 
there is a loss of from $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 
every year on eggs, alone, because they are not 
marketed promptly and properly. 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 141 

There is the loss due to the use of varying 
containers, certain producing- districts having 
one style and size of package, while its faraway 
market has another style entirely. The goods 
must be repacked and regraded and the con- 
sumer foots the bill. 

There are losses due to the decay of food 
products while waiting in the sun, rain or snow 
for transportation. There are losses due to 
improper loading in the cars. There are losses 
due to irregularity and delay in freight sched- 
ules on the railroad lines. There are losses due 
to rough and negligent handling by railroads 
and express companies and truckmen at ter- 
minal points. There are losses due to a multi- 
plicity of terminal freight yards, cars of produce 
arriving at widely scattered points, while delay 
in locating them results in decay and damage. 
There are losses due to lack of facilities at 
freight terminals. There are losses due to the 
cartage of foods and the extra handling in- 
volved, each handling meaning bruised fruit, 
broken eggs, etc. Wholesale dealers estimate 
that cartage from the terminal points alone 
amounts to 1% of their gross sales. One New 
York wholesale dealer who handles only poultry 
and eggs, states that with a properly equipped 
terminal market he could save $50,000 on cart- 
age costs alone each year. In Washington the 



142 The Community Capitol. 

loss on apples and peaches in cartage and extra 
handling is from 5% to 10% of the total value. 

There is a great loss due to inadequate ware- 
house facilities. Hon. Joseph A. Conry, former 
Director of the Port of Boston, says: 

* ' Millions of dollars worth of perishable food- 
stuffs are grown each year by the people of 
America and then permitted to go to waste be- 
cause of the lack of proper storage facilities at 
reasonable rates. This loss touches every fam- 
ily in the land. The goods lost being removed 
from the market, the remaining articles of 
course take on an increase in value.'' 

Under present conditions, there are glutted 
markets in one place and a famine in another. 
No attempt is made to distribute products in 
scientific fashion. In one city, products decay 
and are hauled to the dump, while producers 
also allow their produce to rot on the farm. In 
another city, within easy shipping distance, ex- 
tremely high prices, due to an inadequate sup- 
ply, are charged to the consumer. 

Of course, the consumer carries all these un- 
necessary costs and pays for all these wastes, 
although both consumer and producer are in- 
jured. Every unfair trade practice, down the 
long line of distribution, comes back in the end 
to the consumers' pocket. If the producer is 
cheated on one shipment, he must recoup his 



1 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 143 

losses on another, or go out of business. In the 
end, every false return, every dishonest deal, 
every waste and every loss, due to our complex, 
confused, costly machinery of distribution, is 
paid by the consumer. That is one of the evi- 
dences of interdependence between Americans 
which cannot be argued away. 

The I. W. W. — ^'Industrial Wasters of the 

World. ' ' 

What is the total cost of all this in dollars and 
cents ! It is difficult to estimate accurately but 
I have pointed out sufficient details to prove 
that we are the real I. W. W.'s — '^ Industrial 
Wasters of the World.'' 

The Osborne Committee of the New York 
legislature which in 1912 investigated New 
York food costs, stated that the cost of distribu- 
tion was 46% of the gross retail price. This in- 
cluded all foods and the cost of perishables was 
shown to be much higher. Since 1912 the cost 
of distributing food has risen by leaps and 
bounds. There is often a spread of 500% be- 
tween the price the producer receives and the 
price the consumer pays. An investigation into 
Washington food prices by the United States 
District Committee in 1919 proved that pota- 
toes which brought $1.50 to the farmer, cost 
the consumer $4.50. Onions brought the pro- 



144 The Community Capitol. 

ducer five cents a pound and cost the consumer 
twenty cents. Cans containing corn for which 
the farmer received 3i/i> cents each, when deliv- 
ered to the consumer cost 40 cents each. 

To-day, the cost of distribution of foodstuffs 
amounts to much more than 50% of the retail 
price. There cannot be the slightest question 
that our present system of food distribution 
adds ^ve billions of dollars a year to the food 
bill of America, every dollar of this vast sum 
coming out of the consumers ' pockets, without a 
single dollar of it going to the producer. 

Is it not time to end this situation! Taxation 
of excess profits will not do it because it has 
been abundantly proved that the taxes are sim- 
ply shifted to the consumer with an additional 
percentage of profit besides. Legislation is of 
no use save to free the channels and permit the 
natural flow of products direct from the pro- 
ducer to consumer. ^1 

But it must be done. Any country which per- 
mits its people to be offered a daily sacrifice be- 
fore the altar of Moloch, cannot talk too boldly 
about lifting up other nations. It is well to re- 
member that the dollar in an American 's pocket 
is an evidence of liberty. It entitles its owner 
to a certain amount of merchandise, or leisure, 
or education. Whoever unjustly takes away a 
part of that dollar deprives the American of a 



r 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 145 

part of his liberty. There is no enemy of Amer- 
ican liberty more powerful as an unjust toll- 
taker than the present system of distributing 
the nation's food supplies, with its countless 
complexities and advantages for parasites and 
profiteers. 

Once more we come back to the fundamental 
trouble, the divisions which separate Americans 
and prevent their getting together for coopera- 
tion. The producers and consumers are un- 
organized and helpless. Organization and 
cooperation are the vital needs and with them 
Americans will serve themselves. It is the 
coupler that is needed to make a connecting link 
between those who produce the food and those 
who eat it ; between the farm and the pantry. 

We have the greatest distributing system in 
all the world in operation in America and it be- 
longs to all the people. It is the United States 
postal service which calls every day at the door 
of every producer and every consumer in the 
land. When it was first established as a de- 
partment of government. President Andrew 
Jackson declared that it would serve the same 
function for the country that the veins and 
arteries serve for the human body. 

The postal service was organized for the pur- 
pose of carrying things, the very task which 
has become the crux of our food problem. The 

10 



146 The Community Capitol. 

food products have been produced, in the main, 
cheaply and efficiently, but when it comes to 
carrying them to the pantry of the consumer, 
we find immense wastes and great costs. There 
is no essential difference between the delivery 
of a book by mail and the delivery of a pound 
of butter or a bushel of potatoes. If we are to 
eliminate the distance and the barriers which 
separate buyer and seller to-day, we must do it 
through the American people's own agency, the 
postal service. 

Still, this natural distributing agency, this 
public carrying system, cannot meet the public 
need, without organization of the citizenship. 
The parcels post system, inaugurated seven 
years ago, has run afoul of the difficulties of 
individualistic dealing and as a result, has 
proved disappointing. 

The expense of securing individual shipments 
of food products from the farmer to the city 
dweller is almost prohibitive. A single dozen 
of eggs, shipped in separate container, costs at 
least ten cents. Then there is the inconvenience 
to the producer in handling many petty ac- 
counts, filling and shipping each individual con- 
tainer. There is also the difficulty of the city 
dweller getting in touch with the farmer who 
will take the trouble necessary for such indi- 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 147 

vidual transactions, with persons he does not 
know personally. 

These difficulties, which have prevented the 
success of the parcels post system, are removed 
by organization of the community. When there 
is a responsible association of consumers, acting 
through a community secretary, products are 
bought in wholesale quantities. Cases of eggs, 
crates of vegetables, tubs of butter and barrels 
of potatoes are bought instead of the smaller 
units. The parcels post charges, thus dis- 
tributed, become an insignificant expense and 
the delivery is effected directly at a smaller 
cost than by any other system possible. 

There must be organization, both in the city 
and country and only when this is done can we 
expect success in getting products of the farm 
direct to the table of the consumer. 

Neighborhoods must be organized and the 
public school district is the unit of neighbor- 
hood. The public school building, in the center, 
belongs to all the people and every citizen 
shares with all the other citizens in the com- 
munity of its ownership. These buildings stand 
ready to hand to be used as stations of collection 
and distribution in the great movement to bring 
producers and consumers together, through the 
agency of the postal service, operated for the 
public benefit. 



148 The Community Capitol. 

Solution or Food Problem Depends on Public 

Agencies. 

The public school and the postal service are 
public agencies, and this is essential for the suc- 
cess of cooperation in solving America's food 
problem. Private agencies cannot meet the 
concerted drive of highly organized interests, 
desperately struggling for excessive profits and 
willing to lose vast sums in order to strangle 
effective competition. ^| 

J. B. Mclntyre, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 
former president of the Producers and Consum- 
ers ' Exchange, of that city, has written a de- 
tailed account of his attempts to operate market 
produce cars on railroad lines traversing rich 
agricultural territory. His plan was perfect in 
theory, completely organized and meant a sav- 
ing of 50% on many food articles. At first, he 
was entirely successful in linking up the pro- 
ducer and the consumer, with benefit to both. 
Then came the organized opposition of dis- 
tributing interests. The farmers were offered 
higher prices. Agents were sent to buy all the 
goods offered at the cars. Boards of Health 
in the towns concerned were requested to stop 
alleged violations of the health laws. When 
these failed, the tremendous pressure on the 
railroad company itself was sufficient to stop the 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 149 

service and the whole plan collapsed. Mr. Mc- 
Intyre says : 

* ^ Indignation meetings were held. Commit- 
tees of both producers and consumers waited on 
the officials of the railroad company, but no sat- 
isfaction was given and the service was ordered 
withdrawn. ' ' 

That is the fate of plans which depend on pri- 
vate agencies, even with such public service im- 
plications as railroad companies. But the 
school house is public property, owned by the 
community. The Post Office Department is 
public property, owned by the people. Once 
organized to use their own public facilities, the 
people may defy all the confederated cliques of 
exploiting interests. 

That the school house and the postal service 
can be coordinated for lowering the cost of food- 
stuffs is not a theory ; it is a proven fact. 

In the city of Washington, the Park View 
School District community organized in their 
splendid school building. They elected their 
officers, the community secretary being John G. 
McGrath, who became the responsible agent of 
the community in all its activities. The people 
gathered in their community home for recrea- 
tion and the discussion of vital questions. An 
enthusiastic fraternity of neighbors was estab- 
lished and the results have far exceeded the 



150 The Community Capitol. 

expectations of those most active in the organi- 
zation of the community. 

One of the postal stations of the city post 
office, which had been located in a drug store, 
was discontinued because the druggist refused 
to continue the duties of postal agent. Imme- 
diately the community organization requested 
that the station be placed in the school building 
as the most convenient location for the people. 
This was done and the community secretary was 
named as postal agent and given the salary at- 
tached to the position. It was the first time in 
the history of the United States that this com- 
bination of facilities, the most natural imagi- 
nable, had ever been made. 

The people gladly availed themselves of the 
postal facilities and the receipts on regular 
postal business tripled within a single year. 
Then came the question of using the parcels 
post facilities for securing food products di- 
rectly from the producer. Individual orders 
were sent out to individual farmers, but all the 
difficulties of such dealing were at once in evi- 
dence. 

Just at this time, Congress authorized an ap- 
propriation of $300,000 for experimental motor 
truck routes in an effort to facilitate the collec- 
tion and delivery of food products, direct from 
the producer to the consumer. Immediately 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 151 

the Park View community took advantage of 
this new service and began ordering food prod- 
ucts in wholesale quantities. Still, there re- 
mained difficulties in the way. It required the 
products of many farmers to meet the needs of 
the community and much inconvenience and de- 
lay were experienced in getting into contact 
with farmers who desired to sell their produce 
in this manner. 

Finally, it was seen the organization of con- 
sumers is but half of the solution. The ship- 
ments at the farms must be organized also if 
permanent benefits were to be realized. How- 
ever, the task was simplified because in the rural 
sections as well as in the city, the public school 
house stands ready as the center and headquar- 
ters of the community. 

One of the new motor truck routes of the Post 
Office Department ran from Washington to 
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It traversed a rich 
farming country for ninety miles and no part of 
it paralleled a railroad line. In the past, count- 
less tons of vegetables and fruit, raised in this 
territory, had been allowed to waste and rot, 
simply because there was no connection with a 
market which assured profitable returns. 

The route passed through Mount Joy town- 
ship, Adams county, Pennsylvania, which is sit- 
uated on the edge of the famous Gettysburg 



152 The Community Capitol. 

battlefield. There was organized the first rural 
postal station-community center in the United 
States. The farmers of the township, gathered 
in the Two Tavern school house, formed the 
Mount Joy Community Association. Calvin 
Eudisill, a former member of the state legisla- 
ture was elected president and A. Nevin Spon- 
sellor, teacher in the Two Taverns school, was 
elected community secretary. This latter 
official, the key of the community organization, 
was elected by the people of the community and 
by virtue of that election was made a postal 
agent of the Post Office Department. 

As teacher in the public schools, Mr. Spon- 
sellor received the magnificent sum of $250 a 
year. As postal agent he was paid $300 a year 
to start, thus doubling his income. 

Schools Connect Farm and City. 

Thus the organized connection was made. 
The motor truck stopped each morning at the 
school house and also at the farms of large pro- 
ducers and collected the crates of butter, cases 
of eggs, bags of vegetables, boxes of poultry and 
other commodities. That same evening the 
products were delivered at the Park View 
school house in Washington and there dis- 
tributed to the people of the community. The 
list of prices was sent each week by the Mount 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 153 

Joy community secretary to the Park View 
community secretary. Orders were sent out 
and the goods shipped as desired. Payment 
was made by check weekly and the community 
secretary at Mount Joy kept records of ship- 
ments made by each farmer and made payment 
accordingly. 

Thus the first direct communication between 
organized rural and urban communities through 
postal communication was effected between 
Washington and Mount Joy. 

Around that little town of Gettysburg was 
fought the greatest battle on American soil. 
For three days the red gods of war took mighty 
toll of American blood and life. From that 
field, Secession reeled backward, facing certain 
overthrow. Sixty-six hundred men died there 
in fratricidal strife, brother slaying brother in 
a frenzy of wrath and hate. 

Is it not peculiarly appropriate that there, 
within sight of Cemetery Ridge and the Peach 
Orchard and the Wheat Field and the Round 
Tops should be organized the first community 
center in the linking up process through which 
the public school and the postal service, com- 
munity and communication, are made to work 
for a united, coordinated America? There, on 
the site of battle, where men went through 
blood and fire because of division and disunion. 



154 The Community Capitol. 

began the movement for unity and cooperation. 
And the victory which is yet to be won for this 
genuine fellowship and fraternity of Americans 
will be more far-reaching and lasting than that 
which crowned the storm-swept crests of Gettys- 
burg in those July days of sixty- three. 

More money paid to the producer ; less money 
paid by the consumer ; that is the record made 
by these initial organizations in the movement 
which should be made nation-wide. There is 
scarcely a food product that has not been 
handled through this new direct dealing system. 

In Washington the prices of oysters doubled 
in five years while at the same time the price 
paid the producer remained fixed. For the en- 
tire process of gathering and preparing these 
oysters, planting, shucking, etc., the oyster 
farmer received 75 cents a gallon. Then those 
oysters were sold to the people of Washington 
at 80 cents a quart. 

The Park View community organization en- 
gaged to buy the entire output of Charles Con- 
nelly, of Britton Bay, at $1.50 a gallon and he 
agreed to furnish the containers and pay the 
postage. The oysters were delivered to the 
postal station in the Park View school house, 
by postal motor truck and were delivered to the 
consumers at 40 cents a quart, which covered 
the entire cost of handling, wastage, etc. Of 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 155 

course, no profit was included, the public ma- 
chinery of school house and postal service alone 
being used. 

The first order was for ten gallons of oysters 
each week. Within two months it was made 35 
gallons and following that, the demand made 
necessary the shipment of 75 gallons each week, 
during the season. The producer, for the first 
time having an assured and profitable market, 
developed a first-class business. He experi- 
mented in the effort to produce a product of the 
highest class. He employed additional men at 
good wages. The old uncertainty of delivery, 
the loss of all the oysters gathered, if the boat 
failed to arrive, which meant the total loss of 
much-needed food supplies, have disappeared. 
And the oysters, gathered in the morning, are 
served on the tables in Washington homes the 
same evening. 

The producer gets twice as much for his 
oysters as he ever received before and the con- 
sumer pays exactly half the price he was for- 
merly compelled to pay. Is that not an object 
lesson teaching the mutual advantages of co- 
operation in the use of two great American in- 
stitutions, the public school and the postal 
service ? 

Surely if oysters can be handled to such ad- 
vantage, through this method of organized, 



156 The Community Capitol. 

direct dealing, it follows that almost any other 
food product could be handled with even greater 
success. T 

The Federal Trade Commission classifies 
food products in the following subdivisions: 
Meat and meat products, fish and and sea food, 
flour and grain products, groceries, fresh fruits 
and vegetables, butter, cheese, eggs and poultry, 
milk. 

Articles in every one of these classes have 
been handled successfully in the Park View and 
other community centers. I have seen in a 
single shipment to Park View such commodities 
as poultry, oysters, fish, pork products, honey, 
canned goods, potatoes, apples, butter and eggs. 

For Thanksgiving, 1918, the members of Park 
View community, purchased their turkeys at 32 
cents a pound when they were selling in other 
markets at 50 cents and over. For Christmas a 
shipment of 140 turkeys was received from a 
rural community center. The producers re- 
ceived six cents a pound more than the prevail- 
ing price paid by commission men and the con- 
sumers saved 15 cents a pound on retail prices. 
Instances could be multiplied to prove the mu- 
tual benefits of this common-sense cooperation, 
but it must be evident to all that through such a 
system the wastes of the present distributing 
system of foodstuffs may be eliminated and the 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 157 

resulting advantages given to the people them- 
selves. 

Only through such coupling up of community 
with communication can the present evil system 
of taking products out of one district, which 
needs them badly, and sending them to far-off 
markets, with all the wastes which follow, be 
remedied. 

The only study, which has ever been made, to 
my knowledge, to determine by scientific 
methods, the land area needed to supply the 
food budget for a metropolitan center, is that 
completed by Benton Mackaye, for the Post 
Office Department. At my request, Mr. Mac- 
kaye, an expert investigator for the Department 
of Labor, was commissioned by Fourth Assist- 
ant Postmaster General James I. Blakeslee, to 
make such a study as applied to the city of 
Washington. 

For six months he investigated the food pro- 
ducing districts within 75 miles of the Capitol 
City. His report is a revealing record of care- 
ful observation and logical conclusion. It has 
been of great value in other investigations. 

13,600 AcEEs Needed to Supply 2,500 Persons. 

Under the budget worked out by the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics for Washington, a com- 
munity of 2,500 population within the city, con- 



158 The Community Capitol. 

sumes each week 49,000 pounds of foodstuffs and 
patronizes a weekly retail business of $7,500. 
It is interesting to note that through several 
angles of approach, official investigators unite 
in declaring that a single, modernly equipped, 
food distributing business, can most efficiently 
serve a community of 2,500 people, which is pre- 
cisely the size of the average city school district 
and of the consolidated rural school district in 
America. 

On the basis of actual yield per acre, the cul- 
tivated land required to supply a community of 
2,500 persons is 11,560 acres, which with an ad- 
ditional 15% for permanent woodland, would 
make a total of 13,600 acres. This area would 
be divided into 105 acres for potatoes, 885 acres 
for wheat, 380 acres for rye, barley, etc., 2,360 
acres for corn, 1,390 acres for oats, 1,660 acres 
for hay, 2,560 acres for fruits and small vege- 
tables and 2,220 acres for pasturage. 

The working population of one agricultural 
community of 2,500 persons can utilize three 
times this area, or 40,800 acres. This extended 
area would support a group of efficient-size, 
food-producing factories, including one cream- 
ery, one flouring and grist mill and one abattoir. 
Thus a single agricultural community of 2,500 
population would support itself, as to all staples, 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 159 

and two other equal sized communities in the 
city. 

The population of the District of Columbia 
is 455,000, which would make 182 communities 
of 2,500 persons each. They would require the 
product of 3,712,800 acres. The logical market 
district for Washington, the area within 75 
miles, embraces 4,900,000 acres of farm land. 
Properly cultivated this area would provide the 
staple food products for the city of Washington 
and for the entire population within the tribu- 
tary territory itself. 

Now, ninety-one rural supply units, each con- 
sisting of 2,500 persons using 40,800 acres of 
land, would produce the food for Washington 
and for themselves as well. These units and the 
land are available. There is no doubt that 
the District of Columbia can easily be supplied 
with all staple food products from its adjacent 
market territory. 

A survey of the United States shows an area 
of 475,000,000 acres of actual food producing 
territory, with a population of 105,000,000 peo- 
ple to be supplied. On the plan of production I 
have outlined, 452,000,000 acres would be 
needed, so that there is more than the area re- 
quired. Taking the country as a whole, 
79,000,000 of our people can be wholly supplied 
from local territory, while 26,000,000, located 



160 The Community Capitol. 

entirely within the Atlantic States, would re- 
quire an additional supply from outside sources. 
While the territory around certain eastern cen- 
ters would not place them entirely on a self-sup- 
porting basis, it is the part of wisdom to develop 
such facilities as do exist, to the utmost possible 
degree. 

This statement, too, takes into consideration 
only the present state of land cultivation. The 
agricultural land now unused in the eastern 
states, if brought to its possible productivity, 
would make this territory self-supporting. 
With its cultivation made profitable through 
giving the producer some of the benefits of re- 
duced distributing costs, this land, instead of 
standing idle and worthless, would again be pro- 
ducing the food supplies needed by America. 

From 1860 to 1910, New England's farm 
lands under cultivation decreased from 12,215,- 
771 acres to 7,112,698, a loss of 42%. In 1840 
there were four million sheep in New England 
and in 1910, only 430,672, a loss of 89%. The 
possibilities may be realized when it is known 
that if New England had as many sheep in pro- 
portion to area as the British Isles, this district 
would be raising fifteen million sheep to-day. 

There are to-day 320,000,000 acres of food 
producing land in this country that lie idle, 
bringing forth nothing. That is almost enough 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 161 

in itself to furnish adequate supplies for the 
present population of the United States and 
should be considered by those critics who insist 
that local territory will not supply the needs of 
our urban centers. 

Here then is the answer to the present chaotic 
food distribution system, which sends food 
products criss-crossing the country, with the 
vast expense and needless waste involved in 
such a system. Use the food produced within 
the local district for supplying the needs of the 
district itself. Take advantage of the organiza- 
tion of the postal service, which goes to the door 
of every producer and every consumer. Or- 
ganize the community so that food products 
may be shipped in wholesale quantities for re- 
tail distribution. 

Let us take that humble but important article 
of food, the white potato. It occupies the second 
place, by weight, in the food budget of the aver- 
age American family. It is grown in large 
quantities in every state and there are few steps 
between producer and consumer because its use 
involves no intervening manufacturing process. 

The farmer who raises the potatoes must 
plant, attend and harvest his crop, besides tak- 
ing all the risks of bad weather, insect pests, 
plant diseases, etc. It should be self-evident 

that the producer should receive many times 
11 



162 The Community Capitol. 

more for his skilled work and capital than the 
man who performs the menial task of carrying 
those potatoes from the farm to the pantry. 

In 1919 the average price received by the pro- 
ducer of potatoes was $1.26 a bushel. The aver- 
age price paid by the consumer was $2.24 a 
bushel. It cost 98 cents to deliver a bushel of 
potatoes from the producer to consumer. In 
1920 the price of potatoes went to astounding 
heights in the early months and in June, the 
price of white potatoes was 606% higher than in 
June, 1913. All this in spite of the fact that the 
1919 crop was up to the average and was 72 
million bushels more than in 1916, when the 
price was much lower. 

What Community Oeganization Can Do for 
THE Ultimate Consumer. 

Through the use of the postal service plus 
community organization, potatoes can be 
shipped in large quantities at 35 cents a bushel 
from the farm of the producer to the kitchen of 
the consumer. That means a saving of 64% of 
the present cost of distribution. The producer 
could be given a still higher return and the 
price to the consumer would be less than the 
1914 price level, taking into consideration the in- 
crease in wages since that time. 

Such a program should appeal to every city 




Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 163 

dweller who saw the white potato take the same 
classification as hothouse fruit, with a price of 
twenty cents a pound. Some one has said that 
even ^Hhe oldest inhabitant could not remem- 
ber when he had to dig down so deep for 
potatoes/^ 

There is no just reason for the high prices of 
potatoes, no reason at all except an insane dis- 
tributing system. The Bureau of Labor Sta- 
tistics estimated in August, 1919, that twelve 
bushels of potatoes is the minimum annual re- 
quirement for the average American family. 
The 21 million families in the United States 
would therefore use at least 252 million bushels 
of potatoes. The saving on distributing cost, 
based on figures for 1919, by use of community 
organization and postal service would amount 
to 160 millions of dollars. 

The average price received by the producer of 
eggs in 1919 was 43 cents a dozen. The aver- 
age retail price was 62% cents a dozen. The 
entire expense in shipping one dozen eggs, 
through the postal service where case lots are 
handled, is less than 3 cents. The advantage of 
this service over any other method of distribu- 
tion is shown also by investigation of the United 
States Department of Agriculture. A large 
number of packages of eggs were sent by par- 
cels post and the same quantity by freight and 



164 The Community Capitol. 

express. The breakage of eggs handled by the 
postal service was 1.3% while the use of the 
other methods resulted in a breakage of 8% of 
the eggs handled. Through this use of the par- 
cels post and the community center the cost of 
distribution may be reduced 90%, surely a 
worth while consummation to every producer 
and consumer. 

The producer of butter received during 1919 
an average price of 50 cents a pound, while 
the consumer paid 68 cents. Where a quantity 
of butter can be shipped to the community 
center, the cost of delivery is less than 2 cents 
a pound, a saving of 92% of the distributing 
cost. 

There is not an article on the food budget 
given by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which 
cannot be handled in this manner at the same 
tremendous saving in the cost of distribution. 
Even the distribution of a city's milk supply 
can be so handled. When milk was selling in 
New York City at 21 cents a quart, an investiga- 
tion showed that the farmer-producers were re- 
ceiving from 5 to 9 cents a quart. 

Here was an advance of 200% on the pro- 
ducers ' prices for the transportation, treatment 
and distribution of milk. A careful study of 
these costs showed that transportation, pasteur- 
izing and all possible expenses together with a 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 165 

liberal profit should not have been more than 5 
cents a quart at the dairy. 

Judging by such conditions, it is perfectly 
feasible for the community, using the postal or- 
ganization, to transport milk from the farm to 
the community pasteurizing plant and from 
there to the individual consumer and save one- 
half of the present retail price. The produc- 
tion of milk could be increased, and more pro- 
ducers encouraged to enter the field by an added 
cent a quart and still the consumer would reap 
tremendous advantages. 

Taking only the staple foodstuffs specified in 
the budget of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
the sum of five billions of dollars could be 
lopped off the food bill of America by the com- 
mon-sense process of the cooperation of the 
people in the use of the school house and the 
postal service. 

Well indeed, did Mr. Mackaye, after scientific 
investigation into the conditions in the market- 
ing territory adjacent to Washington, draw his 
conclusion : 

*^The community center, in the public school 
building, is the logical place and the practicable 
one, for handling local marketing. This can 
readily be done, and is being done, by placing 
the local postal station in the local school build- 
ing. Our national postal system is thus linked 



166 The Community Capitol. 

up with our nation-wide public school system. 
This is accomplished through the appointment 
of the community secretary as local postmaster. 
Thus equipped, the secretary is enabled to carry 
on several of the public utilities required by the 
community; he combines the functions of four 
institutions, the school, the town hall, the post 
office and the public market. This combination 
has already been put into successful operation 
in the city of Washington, in the Park View 
school building. ' ' 

That conclusion fits in exactly with the state- 
ment of the Federal Trade Commission, after 
the most thorough investigation of the entire 
food problem ever made in this country. Its 
final report says : 

^^In every community where a considerable 
number of people live, there should be organized 
means of economizing foodstuffs. So inti- 
mately does the matter concern the public, both 
in the manner and the outcome of its establish- 
ment, that it should not be undertaken apart 
from the common effort and the common counsel 
of the public.'^ 

Collective dealing through community centers 
will solve the bread and butter problem in 
America. It will mean an enlarged parcels 
post service, equipped to handle, by one collec- 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 167 

tion and delivery, almost the entire staple food 
needs of the nation. 

There will be state headquarters and a clear- 
ing house service of information to producers 
and consumers which will reach every com- 
munity. The community secretaries, acting as 
agents for the people, will have nothing to gain 
or lose on prices and will buy and sell as the 
community directs. 

Community warehouses, slaughter houses, 
and cold storage houses, to prepare and pre- 
serve the food products grown in the adjacent 
territory, will end the vast wastes in transpor- 
tation and the concentration of control of the 
people's food into a few hands and in a few dis- 
tricts. Cities will be supplied by the carload 
from the nearest point of production. 

The present system is uncertainty, chaos, 
waste and tragically high prices. The new will 
be a common-sense system to prevent waste and 
to assure prices based on the actual supply and 
demand. The present system of distributing 
food supplies takes five billion dollars out of the 
people 's pockets every year, and returns no bene- 
fit . One-fourth of a single year's excess cost of 
food would build a $500,000 central community 
warehouse and storage house in every city in 
the country with a population of more than 5,000 
and a $40,000 building in every town with less 



1G8 The Community Capitol. 

than 5,000 population. It would build, in addi- 
tion, an adequate warehouse in every rural com- 
munity of 2,500 people in all the land. 

Abolition of Evils — Not Meee Resistance. 

Resisting the evils of the present system of 
distribution is an endless task. The defects 
are fundamental in themselves and their results 
are shown in the Irishman's reply to the kind 
gentleman who saw him digging in a ditch and 
inquired the reason. 

^^Sure,'* responded the workman, *^I'm down 
here diggin' to get some money to buy some 
food for me old wife to cook to make some 
muscle to do some more diggin' to get some 
more money to buy some more food to make 
some more muscle to do some more diggin', to 
get some more money to buy some more food to 
make some more muscle to do some more dig- 
gin \ ' ' 

The energies which are used now in eliminat- 
ing minor wastes and inefficiencies, if directed 
toward building on our time-tried institutions, 
will abolish the evils. With distribution of food 
organized through community cooperation, such 
evils as food gambling, packer monopoly, hoard- 
ing in private storage houses and unwarranted 
exports of foodstuffs will disappear. 

Attempts to fix arbitrarily values by law must 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 169 

ever prove futile. I insist that the law of sup- 
ply and demand, with a proper system of distri- 
bution, unhindered by human selfishness and 
greed for gain, will fairly fix the price of every 
food product essential to the life of man. 

The benefits to the producer through the elim- 
ination of excessive costs in distribution, will 
mean as much to America as the benefits to the 
consumer. One of the most fundamental issues 
in American life is the future of food produc- 
tion. If the social and economic life of the 
American farmer is endangered, the threat 
comes at last to every individual American, 

Agriculture is the biggest and most important 
industry in America. It has 6,361,502 indi- 
vidual plants. It employs 14,500,000 persons. 
It has a capital of sixty billion dollars. Its an- 
nual production amounts to thirty billion dol- 
lars. Upon this basic industry and its progress 
and prosperity rest the very foundations of 
American life. 

How is it with the American farmer! The 
Post Office Department sent a questionnaire to 
many thousands of farmers situated in all sec- 
tions of the country. Eeplies were received 
from 40,000 and they voiced a practically unani- 
mous dissatisfaction. The three points on 
which all the farmers agreed as being injurious 
to them were : lack of facilities for direct trad- 



170 The Community Capitol. 

ing between the farmer and the ultimate con- 
sumer ; big profits taken by middlemen on farm 
products ; and scarcity of farm labor because of 
the movement citywards on the part of the 
young people reared on the farm. I 

These three points at least resolve themselves 
into one and that the one we have been discuss- 
ing, defective distribution. The cure must be 
effected between the point where the farmer 
sells his product too low and the consumer buys 
it too high. Only when we face and solve the 
problem of food distribution can we eliminate 
the dangers which hang over the farmers of 
America and over every consumer as well. 

Community cooperation plus direct communi- 
cation will meet this need. It will remove those 
obstacles which prevent direct dealing between 
the producers of farm products and the con- 
sumers of farm products. 

It will eliminate the undue profits taken by 
middlemen, which forms the second complaint 
of the farmers who gave their views as to the 
present situation. 

The third point, lack of farm labor, is worthy 
of clear thinking. So long as young people find 
life more attractive and profitable in the city, 
they will go there and no power can force them 
to remain on the farm. 

Why is it that life is more attractive in the 




J 

I— I 

< 
Q 

fa 
O 






Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 171 

city? Why has Chicago increased half a mil- 
lion in population during the past ten years; 
Akron, Ohio, 201% and almost every other city 
in the land increased its population greatly, as 
shown by the 1920 census reports! 

The editor of the Nehrasha Farmer ^ who is 
also Governor of Nebraska, attempted to answer 
these questions in a series of articles, in 
which he gave the result of numerous communi- 
cations and interviews with city men who were 
born and reared on the farm. 

In every instance these men testified that lack 
of social opportunities for mingling with folks, 
or the hardships of a life devoted to producing 
goods whose prices were fixed by outside inter- 
ests, led them to seek the city, in preference 
to remaining on the farm. 

The community center furnishes a social and 
recreational headquarters, the lack of which has 
helped to rob the country of its young people. 
It provides the place for individual develop- 
ment through mutual counsel, where the most 
interesting problems in the world may be con- 
sidered and decided on the basis of neighborly 
feeling instead of selfish and partisan interests. 

Then through the uses of the public facilities 
for the direct distribution of their products, the 
community acting as a unit, the man who pro- 



172 The Community Capitol. 

duces the food may receive the full value of his 
product. 

Deeper still than that, this community co- 
operation furnishes the method for utilizing 
every advanced method of production which is 
too expensive for the individual farmer. Is 
there a scarcity of farm labor! Then the an- 
swer is the power machinery which saves labor. 

In the cities power moves the wheels of every 
industry. Power lights the houses, hauls the 
vehicles on rivers, rails and street. Power cooks 
the food, lifts the elevators, carries the mes- 
sages over the wires, contrives everything that 
is worn, from shoes to the button on the cap. 

In the country, power in a single machine, can 
be made to plow 80 acres of land in a day. It 
can perform harvesting tasks impossible for an 
army of men working with their hands. 

The Answek to the Peoblem. 

This then is the answer to the problem: co- 
operation for the use of this power, limitless in 
its capabilities. The rural community, organ- 
ized in its logical center in all-inclusive associa- 
tion, with its paid community secretary as agent, 
can perform collectively the tasks which none of 
its members can perform individually. It can 
own its tractors, its harvesters and threshers, 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 173 

iiiid by facing its tasks in the together-spirit can 
overcome its difficulties. 

The Farmers' National Council has asked 
Congress to appropriate $25,000,000 to be used 
as a revolving fund and loaned to individual 
farmers for the purchase of farm machinery. 
If such a plan were to be adopted it would mean 
duplication of the most unnecessary and ineffi- 
cient kind. Such a sum for the purpose of mak- 
ing community loans through the use of com- 
munity credit would be far better for it would 
be an incentive to the cooperation which Amer- 
ica needs so greatly. The adoption of real com- 
munity action, and the use of the postal service 
for distribution will prove a greater liberator 
than the invention of the steam engine or the 
self-binder. It will assure justice to the man 
who feeds the nation and it will mean increased 
food production, with resultant benefits to 
America and the world. 

There is a farm population to-day of about 
forty millions of persons. We have seen that 
one community of 2,500 persons can raise the 
food for itself and two city communities of simi- 
lar size. The present farm population can pro- 
duce the food for this country and help to supply 
the world as well. But there must be concentra- 
tion, cooperation and coordination among the 
farmers. No individual can compete single- 



174 The Community Capitol. 

handed with the present conditions. The food 
producers of America must be encouraged to or- 
ganize for the mutual purchase of implements, 
machinery and farm supplies and for the mutual 
sale of their products. That is to the interest 
of every man, woman and child in America. 

Through cooperative action of the agricul- 
tural communities, the credit of all may be used 
for the benefit of each. Then will be abolished 
the evil of absentee landlordism and tenant 
farming. It is probable that 50% of the farm- 
ers of the United States to-day are tenant 
farmers. The tenant farmer must be made an 
owner and this may best be accomplished by 
local action. The community must realize that 
the average tenant does not have the same inter- 
est in the land, in the schools, in good roads as 
the farmer who owns his own home and attaches 
his family to the community. The tenant 
farmer competes on an unfair basis with the 
landowning farmer and he lowers the standard 
of living and creates a haphazard type of farm 
labor. As a policy of enlightened selfishness, 
the agricultural conununity will help meet this 
menace by helping to put back on the soil, the 
landowning, family-raising farmer. 

Given this sense of membership in the com- 
munity and in America, which comes through 
organization and co5peration and the drift from 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 175 

farm to city will never reach the danger point. 
Then the expensive and foolish, so-called ^'edu- 
cational" campaigns with their slogans, ''Back 
to the Soil, " " Stick to the Farm, ' ' will go where 
they belong, into innocuous desuetude. Their 
promoters in most instances have known of 
their futility and they have certainly had the 
doubts of the old colored lady who stood by the 
newly-made grave of her husband and mourned, 
"Poor Rastus, I hope he's gone where I knows 
he ain't." These city-made campaigns, based 
on utter misunderstanding, never did and never 
will add a single real farmer to America's pro- 
ducers. 

So, too, all plans for soldier settlement such 
as are contemplated in the measures before Con- 
gress, are certain to fail unless marketing facili- 
ties are provided and a just distribution system 
established. 

Make life on the farm livable ; put the farmer 
on an equal plane with his city brother, assure 
him the right to know the power and happiness 
of neighborly cooperation, an income for his 
labor sufficient to buy the things that other men 
buy, the right to control his own product 
through the use of public distributing agencies, 
and ambitious, capable young men and women 
will "stick to the farm" and any others needed 
will ' ' go back to the farm. ' ' An ounce of actual 



176 The Community Capitol. 

benefit is worth a pound of moralizing from 
those who sit in the shade and shout ^'Go to it" 
to the farmer as he hoes potatoes. 

Of course, one of the first results of this com- 
munity development in the marketing of food- 
stuffs, through motor trucks of the postal serv- 
ice would be general recognition of the impor- 
tance of permanent road construction. 

There are 3,057 miles of canals, 12,000 miles 
of rivers, lakes and coastal waterways and 
350,000 miles of railroad lines in America. But 
there are 2,200,000 miles of highways. In the 
postal service the collection and delivery of 
mail on rural routes cover 1,300,000 miles of 
these highways every day. These routes trav- 
erse every producing section in the country and 
go to the door of every producer. 

Think of the situation. There are 60,000 star 
and rural route carriers in that postal service. 
Every one of them should be transporting a ton 
of foodstuffs every day. That would mean 
120,000,000 pounds of food every day, enough to 
supply abundantly the entire city population of 
America. 

With community action for direct dealing and 
adequate roads that tremendous accomplish- 
ment is possible. And the trunk lines neces- 
sary, crossing the continent from East to West 
and North to South, can be built and maintained 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 177 

out of the receipts from foodstuffs shipped by 
postal motor trucks. Tlieii, with the states 
maintaining connecting- and feeding lines, the 
highways of America can be made to serve their 
real purpose and produce their intended bene- 
fits. 

Former Assistant Postmaster General Blak- 
slee, who devoted seven years to this problem, 
says that such a plan is entirely feasible. Not 
long ago he stated officially : 

^^The conveyance of mailable matter, includ- 
ing parcels post, at the regular postal rates, will 
cover the cost of transportation, expenses of 
administration, and also the construction, im- 
provement and maintenance of the highways 
used for such purposes. ' ' 

It must be remembered that first class mail 
matter, which seems so inexpensive at two cents 
a letter, in reality means a freight rate of $2,000 
a ton. It is only necessary that fifteen pounds 
of first class mail be carried to pay all the ex- 
penses of operating a two-ton truck over a dis- 
tance of one hundred miles. 

EXPEKIMENT PkOVES POSSIBILITIES FOR PeOFIT. 

The Postmaster GeneraPs report for 1918 
shows the result of the experiment of using 
motor trucks to carry foodstuffs as mail matter, 
direct from producer to consumer. It shows 

12 



178 The Community Capitol. 

that for the first six months of that year, the 
postal receipts on the eight routes established 
were $204,198.39. The total expenses were 
$41,110.08. The average net profit per route 
for this period was $20,386. The average profit 
was 62 cents for every mile of road traversed. 
While some of the money received as postal 
revenue could not be credited to parcels post 
matter, the showing is clear that the actual re- 
turns on present rates, would fulfill the claim 
made by Mr. Blakslee and would form one of the 
most profitable departments of the American 
government. 

The roads, thus constructed, would bind the 
nation together in a way to defy sectionalism. 
They would result in better schools for there is 
a direct relation between poor roads and poor 
schools. Good roads mean consolidated schools 
with better educational facilities at reduced 
cost. Here too could be found the answer to the 
problem of transporting pupils to the consoli- 
dated schools. The pupils would be carried to 
and from the school house in the post office 
motor trucks, which would also be collecting 
produce and delivering mail matter on alternate 
trips. Coupling up the post office and the pub- 
lic school has many ramifications, every one of 
them meaning an advancement of the common 
good. 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 179 

All these profits will come from a service 
which now shows a great loss. To-day Con- 
gress appropriates some $80,000,000 a year for 
the rural delivery and star route service of the 
Post Office Department. Even then, the car- 
riers are underpaid and are required to furnish 
their own vehicles. 

Ninety out of every hundred of these routes 
begin and end in villages which furnish no mar- 
ket for food. The reports show that there is 
an average collection of but six parcels post 
packages per route each day and a delivery of 
but one. There is a clear loss of $50,000,000 
every year on this service. 

Is this not reckless extravagance and inex- 
cusable folly? These routes should be motor 
truck routes, many times longer than at present. 
Those trucks, owned by the government, should 
be loaded every day with food supplies, direct 
from the grower to the consumer. 

The experiments made have proved that this 
can be done on many routes. With proper 
roads it can be done on all. Wherever there 
was community cooperation plus this means of 
communication there was the kind of success 
which was voiced by Virginia farmers in a letter 
to their United States senators, when it was 
proposed to discontinue the appropriation for 



180 The Community Capitol. 

the motor truck service. In their petition they 
said : 

' ' We have the richest section of Virginia, but 
without transportation facilities. These postal 
motor trucks have been the means of opening up 
new markets for our people and we have been 
brought together as never before. We appeal 
to you from our hearts to help us now, by re- 
storing this appropriation.^^ 

It has already been proven that this plan 
meets every demand of a common-sense system 
of distribution. It means a 20% saving to con- 
sumers and the transportation of food to the 
consumer more quickly and in a better condi- 
tion. It means 10% more to the producer, a 
market outlet for food supplies hitherto un- 
available, maintaining of men and horses on the 
farm, instead of spending time in marketing, 
encouragement of diversity in farming as a re- 
sult of widening the market area, and many 
other benefits to the producer of food. 

It means an income to the United States gov- 
ernment from this profitable movement of food 
supplies over the roads of America, which can 
be used for road improvement and other public 
welfare plans. 

It is time to extend this service on a nation- 
wide scale and to use the benefits of neighborly 
cooperation. Fifty thousand trucks which lie 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 181 

useless in the hands of the War Department 
should be on the roads to win the greater fight 
than that against the Hun — the fight against 
hunger. 

The gross weight of all farm products is esti- 
mated at 400,000,000 tons. The weight of food 
may be placed at 300,000,000 tons, transported 
from the farm. 

To-day the motor trucks of the United States 
are carrying 1,200,000,000 tons over American 
highways. It is not visionary to say that the 
Post Office Department, the greatest distribut- 
ing agency in the world, could carry a quarter 
of the tonnage now carried by privately owned 
motor trucks. And of course it would not be 
necessary to carry all the food supplies to a:ffect 
a change, for the transportation of any consid- 
erable part of the entire tonnage of food prod- 
ucts through the use of the postal service would 
revolutionize the present system of food distri- 
bution. 

The plan involved is simply a peace time 
modification of the service of supply which 
made possible the victory of civilization over 
Prussianism. The food for the armies of 
America in France was carried in fleets of motor 
trucks under the Motor Transport Service. 
From base supply ports, to advanced supply 
depots and thence to the front lines the food for 



182 The Community Capitol. 

the fighting men was conveyed in motor trucks 
over the highways, under the control of 
America, organized for effective action. 

The same ability and genius which organized 
and maintained the service of supply in France 
will suffice to organize this new and equally im- 
portant service of the American people. Its 
adoption will be the answer to the S. 0. S. 
which comes from an anarchic system of food 
distribution, with its menace of privation to 
every American citizen. 

It is a new plan in that it is a new application 
of time tried institutions but it fulfills com- 
pletely the requirements of an old sage who de- 
clared that ^'the purpose of all legislation is to 
make more elf ective use of the institutions from 
which the people are accustomed to derive bene- 
fit.'' The people are accustomed to derive 
benefit from their public schools and their pos- 
tal service ; why not make them more useful by 
coordinating them for the great task of feeding 
America ? 

There is opposition from the constitutional 
standpatters who, if they had been present on 
the morn of creation would have besought the 
Creator to allow things to remain in the status 
quo. 

There is opposition to this plan from food- 
hoarders, monopolizers, speculators and para- 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 183 

site distributors, who love dollars more than 
country and would take profit from the suffer- 
ing of their fellows. 

These pirates of business ply their arts in 
high places, in utter defiance of a disorganized 
people. When the armistice was signed on No- 
vember 11th, the War Department had supplies 
of food for an army of five million men. It had 
commandeered 40% of all the food supplies of 
the United States and had it on hand ready for 
delivery. 

The Story of the *^Aemy Food Sale.'^ 

At the end of June, 1919, there were fewer 
than one million men in the military establish- 
ment. Still the War Department held to the 
food supplies, refusing to dispose of them to the 
people who had subscribed for the Liberty 
Bonds which made their purchase possible. 
The Director of Sales, in the War Department, 
officially stated that it was his policy to dispose 
of these products so as to ^* disturb industrial 
conditions in the country as little as possible.*' 

In the meantime the prices of food, which had 
gone sky high during the war soared 8% higher 
than the level on armistice day. The people 
were at bay before the high cost of living while 
great store houses in many parts of the country 
were bursting with the food they needed. 



184 The Community Capitol. 

What was the reason for this inexcusable 
policy? The American Canner's Association. 
The official record shows that this organization 
objected so strenuously to placing on the market 
the canned foods which had been prepared for 
overseas use, that the War Department assured 
the president of the association that he and his 
associates might relieve their minds on the sub- 
ject. Twenty-two million pounds of cured meats 
were sent from this country to Europe, in spite 
of the fact that we had great storehouses in 
France filled with food supplies and which were 
afterwards sold at a mere fraction of their cost. 

Finally Congress took action. A resolution 
directing the War Department to dispose of 
these food supplies direct to the people through 
the use of the parcels post service, was passed 
by a large vote. It was planned to have co- 
operation between the War Department and the 
Post Office Department, so that the 50,000 post- 
masters of the United States might group the 
orders of their patrons and send them direct to 
army warehouses. 

From the very beginning there was lack of 
cooperation on the part of the War Department. 
Officials could not or would not understand the 
plan. Then Secretary of War Baker sent a let- 
ter to the Post Office Department stating that 
the surplus food allotted to the three states of 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 185 

Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, for dis- 
tribution through the postal service had been 
turned over to the Governors of the states. 

Every postmaster in these three states had 
received detailed instructions as to taking or- 
ders for parcels post delivery and the daily 
newspapers had placed the plan before the pub- 
lic. The result was chaos and confusion. The 
postmaster at Hackensack, New Jersey, wired 
that he had taken cash orders to the amount of 
$12,000 and must return the money to each indi- 
vidual, unless the plan was carried out as origi- 
nally intended. 

Nothing was done, however, and these three 
states were arbitrarily removed from the distri- 
bution as specified in the resolution of Con- 
gress. 

When the price lists were finally prepared for 
distribution to the postmasters in the other 
states, they were found to be full of errors, in 
spite of the fact that the Director of Sales was 
receiving a salary of $25,000 a year, presumably 
for ' * efficiency. ' ' The prices, weights, quantity 
per case and amounts allotted, were jumbled to 
an amazing degree. But in spite of all handi- 
caps, the sale of these food supplies was started 
on August 19, 1919, three weeks after the reso- 
lution had passed Congress. 

Although the prices were not as low as they 



186 The Community Capitol. 

should have been, they made a saving possible 
and the people stormed the doors of the post 
offices of the land. In the first three days the 
Philadelphia post office took in 8,016 separate 
orders and $100,570 cash in advance. Ten cities 
reported sales amounting to over half a million 
dollars, the orders coming direct from the con- 
sumers. 

Taking the orders and the cash and sending 
them to the army warehouses was but one part 
of the transaction. The War Department must 
see that the goods were shipped to the post- 
masters so that they could distribute them to 
the individuals. The War Department fell 
down with a crash. The officers in charge ap- 
parently did not desire the goods delivered 
direct to the consumers. One of the high offi- 
cials of the Post Office Department wrote that 
the very goods which had been bought and paid 
for by postal patrons had been delivered to one 
of the large department stores in Philadelphia 
and sold at a profit. The same story came from 
almost every city in the country. The people 
waited in vain for the food for which they had 
paid in advance, while mercantile establish- 
ments could get all they desired, on easy terms. 

After months of waiting in some cases, the 
money was returned to postal patrons who had 
not received their supplies. In the meantime 




THE FIRST EDUCATOR-POSTMASTER. 

Bust of Benjamin Franklin in Park View 
School, the first schoolhouse-post oflfice. 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 187 

the prices were cut to wholesale and retail stores 
so that they could sell at a profit, at lower prices 
than had been quoted through the postal service. 

Still, the food was not disposed of in a way to 
affect the high cost of living and the prices of 
the very food supplies held by the War Depart- 
ment increased with every month. On July 17, 
1920, more than a year and a half after the ar- 
mistice, the Director of Sales sent out a blanket 
notice stating that $25,000,000 worth of canned 
meats would be sold to dealers of the United 
States, which meant the pyramiding of profits 
and added costs to the consumers. 

The Canners Association and other interests 
bent on exploiting the people had won. In con- 
junction with the War Department they had 
viewed the whole tragic question much as did 
the old Grand Duke Sergius, uncle of the last 
Czar of Russia. When he was told that the 
Russian government existed for the sake of its 
people, he scornfully replied, ^*You might as 
well say that the dog exists for the sake of its 
fleas.'' 

The United States has been termed a ** rob- 
ber's roost," by Senator Capper, of Kansas. 
Such a situation as I have described shows that 
their *^ roost" in the greatest departments of 
government is as high as their prices. But here 



188 The Community Capitol. 



^ 



is the method which will destroy their **roosf 
while it brings down their prices. 

Its fundamental is organization of the Amer- 
ican people as citizens and as neighbors, to act 
for the common welfare, after full knowledge of 
all the facts. With such organization, no agency 
of government, whose only reason for existence 
is to serve the public, will dare to betray the 
common good in order to serve special interests. 

Here is the method to make America make 
good, to assure a government by the people and 
for the people. It is also a short cut between 
producer and consumer, more essential to Amer- 
ican well-being than the short cut at the Panama 
Canal, which was put through in spite of all the 
inertia of government and the stupid antipathy 
to a new idea. The real difference between 
civilization and barbarism is that civilized peo- 
ple aim to work together for the common cause 
while barbarians desire to work as individuals, 
tribes and clans, resulting in constant warfare 
among themselves. The original meaning of 
the word *4ieathen" was ^^a dweller in the 
heath, away from the paths of trade,'' while 
* ^citizen' ' meant ^ ^ one who lived in a center with 
direct intercourse with other places. ' ' Shall we 
not meet the food problem of America as civil- 
ized people rather than barbarians and heathen? 



Food Products from Farm to Pantry. 189 

111 food is the future of freedom and peace 
and contented citizenship. Let us end the an- 
archy which has prevailed in the distribution of 
food by substituting cooperation through the 
powerful forces of community and communica- 
tion. Thus the prosaic but supremely impor- 
tant bread-and-butter question, which makes 
necessary the organization of producers and 
consumers and the establishment of direct deal- 
ing between them, through public agencies, may 
well be the impelling power which will drive us 
to true democracy, safe for us and for the world, 
a democracy that means not only universal lib- 
erty, but universal organization, assuring equal 
opportunity and equal justice to all. 



Part IV 
People's Banks and People's Homes 



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IV. 

PEOPLE'S BANKS AND PEOPLE'S 
HOMES. 

America is short a million dwellings neces- 
sary to give shelter to American families. 
Sixty per cent, of Americans live in rented 
houses and tenantry is increasing each year. 
These facts point out one of the most important 
problems before the nation to-day. 

The responsibility for the situation rests 
to a considerable degree upon war measures. 
Building operations were deliberately sup- 
pressed during 1917 and 1918 through special 
permit requirements of the War Industries 
Board, and when the armistice was signed build- 
ing was at a standstill. 

Since the war, although the transportation of 
building materials has been made difficult by 
priority orders on coal, the main obstacle has 
come through the impossibility of securing 
money and credit at fair terms for home build- 
ing operations. 

In 1919 there were erected about 150,000 
houses and separate apartments for the use of 
as many families. 

13 193 



194 The Community Capitol. 

In 1920 it is estimated that fewer than 75,000 
houses and separate apartments were con- 
structed. 

The situation is growing worse instead of bet- 
ter and the existing shortage grows with each 
passing month. 

To-day we are a million houses behind the 
need, or in other words there is needed at once 
home construction to the extent of four billion 
dollars, in order to afford shelter for the fami- 
lies of America. And each additional year 
brings a demand for 500,000 new dwellings or 
two billion dollars worth of construction. This 
housing shortage carries many evils in its train. 
The New York Times says : 

**The burden of the housing shortage falls 
mainly upon the poor, already sorely prest by 
the cost of food and clothing. The result is reg- 
istered in the WeeMy Bulletin by the Health De- 
partment. There has been a sharp increase in 
infant mortality from ^ respiratory and contagi- 
ous diseases' which are caused mainly by * close 
and indiscriminate contact.' The department 
attributes the increase to *the present housing 
situation which has necessitated the doubling up 
of families,' making it impossible properly to 
isolate contagion. ' ' 

The house shortage is but half the problem. 
The other half is that America is becoming a 



People's Banks and People *s Homes. 195 

nation of tenants, a condition which has meant 
deadly danger to nations since the dawn of civil- 
ization. 

The Special Bulletin on the Ownership of 
Houses, issued by the Bureau of the Census in 
1910 gives the official figures in the situation to 
that date. 

It is shown there that of all the homes in 
America in 1910, 45.8% were occupied by the 
owner, although there is included both those 
owned free and those encumbered with mort- 
gages, 54.2% were rented. This is a decrease in 
the number of home owners for in 1890, 47.8% 
of American homes were occupied by owners 
and in 1900 46.1% were occupied by owners. 

The situation is shown more serious still by 
the consideration of other than farm homes. Of 
these only 38.4% are owned and 61.6% are 
rented. In the most populous sections of the 
country less than one-third of the people own 
their own homes. In New York City in 1910 
more than 88 out of every 100 families lived in 
rented quarters. In Pittsburgh, only 28% of 
the people lived in their own homes. In Phila- 
delphia, less than 27%. In St. Louis more than 
75% of the people lived in rented quarters. In 
Boston, almost 83% of the homes were rented, 
and in Washington, D. C, three-fourths of the 
people lived in rented places. 



196 The Community Capitol. 

There can be little doubt that the percentage 
of tenantry has increased during the past ten 
years, but the official figures will not be avail- 
able for some months. Taking the same per- 
centage as in 1910 would indicate that approxi- 
mately 58,000,000 Americans are living to-day 
in rented homes. Of the 16 million homes in 
America other than farm homes, 10 million are 
rented and 6 millions are occupied by the 
owners. 

It is fundamental that a country of majority 
rule must be a country of majority home-owner- 
ship. The home-owner has roots in the soil of 
America. He has a spot of earth on which to 
live, labor and love. He worships as he builds. 
He does not fear the dread command, ^'Move 
on. ^ ' His home is his treasure and there is his 
heart also. He turns waste into wealth. He 
sticks to the essential thing in spite of all inter- 
ruptions and irritations. His soul develops and 
his character broadens as he builds for himself 
and family. His stake in the land is a pledge 
of fealty to the nation. Toiling for his hearth 
and home he helps build strong and deep the 
foundations of the commonwealth. He is a 
champion of the fireside, his own and every 
other in the land. He is a true member of the 
community and realizes the solidarity of inter- 
est and obligation upon which the hope of 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 197 

America rests. Though his name never be 
heard beyond his immediate neighborhood, he is 
a successful American to-day and his children, 
raised, trained and educated in security and 
stability, are equipped to help make the Amer- 
ica which is to be. 

England has faced the housing situation that 
confronts us and has sought to meet it by giving 
a bounty of $300 a room for every house erected 
for residence purposes. This is a frank subsidy 
to the builder and the British plan contemplates 
a government expense of a $100,000,000 every 
year for sixty years. The taxpayers will foot 
the bill. 

The theory of this legislation is philanthropic 
and it is having the one possible result, pauper- 
ization of the people, more tenants and fewer 
home-owners. America is better able to spend 
$100,000,000 a year for the erection of dwellings 
than England and such action would be advis- 
able if it were the only way or the best way. 

But we do not need to subsidize either tenants 
or landlords. We can do something by punish- 
ing the rent profiteers, who corner the primary 
necessity, shelter, and force the people to pay 
their demands or stay out in the cold. Yet the 
rent legislation will not build houses and as long 
as the present shortage exists there will be 
profiteer landlords. Put one in jail and another 




198 The Community Capitol. 

takes his place. The one sure cure is to in- 
crease the supply of houses and at the same time 
give every worthy American a chance to escape 
the clutches of any and all profiteering land- 
lords in the haven of a home of his own. Gov- 
ernment agencies can perform no greater public 
service now than to encourage the building of 
homes, not as a measure of charity, but of jus- 
tice. The Federal Government need not go into 
the house building business, if it mil help Amer- 
ican citizens buy and build homes for them- 
selves. 

Home Buildeks Need Money and Ceedit. 

The shortage of houses is not due to the high 
building costs. Building materials have not in- 
creased as much as the general increase of all 
commodities. Materials have advanced 110% 
and labor 40%. The one great difficulty is the 
lack of money to finance building. The official 
journal of the Eeal Estate League of New Jer- 
sey in a recent issue said : ' ' The present situ- 
ation is not due to the lack of desire to buy, but 
rather the inability to finance buyers. Out of 
every ten desiring to buy only one can buy on 
account of this condition. ' ' 

That means that money and credit must be 
made available to those whose financial re- 
sources are not sufficient to buy a home for cash. 



People 's Banks and People 's Homes. 199 

This is the one way. How then should this 
capital and credit be secured and made avail- 
able! 

The commercial banks cannot meet the need. 
Loans for home building can scarcely be secured 
at all from banks and then only on real estate 
mortgages at high rates. But the average ten- 
ant has no building lot or real estate. Even if 
he has, there is the high rate of interest and the 
commission for securing a first trust of 5% to 
be paid with each renewal. These charges make 
it an impossible task for those who need homes 
most, to secure the funds necessary through the 
banks. 

The building and loan associations have done 
a great work in this direction but they have 
reached the limit. The demand on their funds 
has been so great that in almost every instance 
they have been compelled to stop loaning funds 
for new homes. 

The Farm Loan Board is just what its name 
indicates, an organization exclusively for farm- 
ers. It cannot loan money to any person who 
does not already possess real estate and thus 
cannot help tenants to become home-owners. 
It does enable the farmer to borrow money on 
his land at one-half the interest that a city 
dweller is obliged to pay for a loan with which 
to build a home. What is needed is a people's 



200 The Community Capitol. 

bank, where the savings of the people may be 
used for building homes at fair interest charges. 
The need is for a building and loan association 
of all the people, connecting the local community 
and the National Government. The need is for 
a Home Loan Board which will help the city 
dweller and country resident alike in building a 
home. 

The nucleus of this organization lies ready to 
hand. It is the postal savings bank, a part of 
the nation-wide postal service which touches 
every community and serves every individual 
in America. 

The Postal Savings System came into exist- 
ence in this country on January 23, 1911, after 
an agitation of more than forty years. In the 
original measure no person could deposit more 
than $100 in one month nor have more than $500 
on deposit. The rate was fixed at 2%, the low- 
est in the world, and was paid only in yearly 
periods. 

In 1916 the limit of deposit was raised to 
$1,000 and in 1918 to $2,500, which remains the 
sum which any individual may have on deposit 
at interest. 

The restrictions and limitations placed on de- 
positors have had the result of making this sys- 
tem merely an immigrant bank. Those who 
come here from other lands know the govern- 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 201 

ment savings system as operated through their 
postal systems and they are willing to trust 
their money to Uncle Sam, at a low rate of inter- 
est, where they would not trust the banks. 

It is estimated that 60% of the depositors in 
postal savings banks are foreign born and they 
own three-fourths of all the deposits. The 
large industrial cities have practically all the 
deposits; 76 of these cities have two-thirds of 
the entire amount. 

In the face of all the limitations, the system 
has grown rapidly and the report for the year 
1919 shows 565,509 depositors with deposits 
of $167,323,260, or $295.88 for each depositor. 

These savings of the people, under the present 
law, are taken in by Uncle Sam and immediately 
turned over to the banks, which pay 2i/^% inter- 
est. In 1919 the sum in banks, national, state, 
private and trust companies, was $135,732,031. 
The balance was held as cash reserve and in- 
vested in liberty and postal savings bonds. 

This is the situation. The government pays 
the depositor 2% on his savings, at yearly inter- 
est periods only, and then places the money in 
the banks at 2%% interest. Then the govern- 
ment borrows the money back from the banks on 
treasury certificates and pays 6% interest. 
Such an insane system would not be tolerated 
by any private concern for a moment. 



202 The Community Capitol. 

Still, in spite of this procedure, the postal 
savings system, judged by itself alone, is a most 
profitable venture, although it is true that the 
profits are mainly taken out of the pockets of 
the depositors. 

In 1919 the interest received by the govern- 
ment from all sources on these deposits was 
$4,319,516. The interest paid to depositors and 
the amount paid out to cover losses from 
burglary, fire and all other causes was $2,297,- 
441. That left a gross profit of $2,022,075. 
The total cost of operation, including every di- 
rect and indirect expense, was $405,987, or in 
other words, these savings were mobilized at a 
cost of one-fourth per cent. The net profit to 
the government in the conduct of the Postal 
Savings System for 1919 was $1,616,087. 

This is rather a tidy sum but it is insignificant 
compared to the profits made by the 5,211 banks 
which held the deposits. While the govern- 
ment was making that profit, the 5,211 banks 
which held the money were making $4,725,000. 
In fact, there was a clear profit of six million 
dollars on the business of the Postal Savings 
System in a single year. 

This people 's savings bank should not be run 
for profit but for the service of the people who 
own it. No possible service could be greater at 
this time than to permit the use of these sav- 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 203 

ings of the people for building and buying 
homes for the people. 

We should immediately remove the restric- 
tions upon deposits of money in the postal sav- 
ings banks. Then the interest should be fixed 
at 4% with quarterly interest periods. The 
result would be an outpouring of the people's 
money into this reservoir owned by themselves 
to be operated solely for the public welfare. 
All the existing banks in the United States have 
gathered in only half the actual money in the 
country. That which remains outside will fur- 
nish the basis for a great credit structure. 

If we had the number of depositors in our 
Postal Savings System that France has, we 
would have a fund of $1,947,407,690. If we had 
the number of depositors that Italy has, the 
fund would be $1,905,670,390. If we had the 
depositors of the Postal Savings Systems of 
the United Kingdom, the amount would be $4,- 
350,311,195. If we had the same proportion of 
depositors to population that prevail in New 
Zealand, with the same average deposit they 
have, the fund would amount to more than ten 
billion dollars. 

Postal Savings Will Solve This Pkoblem. 

We need four billion dollars to finance the 
building of the homes needed for the shelter of 



204 The Community Capitol. 

America. Take the restrictions o:ff the Postal 
Savings System and hold out the incentive of 
home-ownership and the sum will be available 
within the year. 

There must be established the method of mak- 
ing loans to worthy Americans who desire to 
own their own homes. This can best be done 
through a federal board, composed of the Post- ! 
master General and four other members of the 
cabinet, to have general supervision of the pos- 
tal savings banks and the administration of the 
funds. 

In each community would be a local board of^^ 
directors, consisting of the postmaster and foun^ 
others, two being appointed as expert apprais- ♦ 
ers of residence property and two elected by the 
depositors. 

The applicant for a home loan would apply to 
this board making certified statement that he is 
an American citizen, that he has on deposit in 
the postal savings bank at least 10% of the 
value of the home he desires to purchase, and 
meeting such other requirements as the local 
board may determine. 

Action by the local board would be subject to 
review by the national board, and if approved 
the stipulated sum would be advanced to the 
borrower, on the security of a trust deed upon 
the home property. The loan would be repaid 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 205 

ill monthly instalments, sufficient to cover inter- 
est and principal within a reasonable period. 

On a loan for $3,000, at 6% interest, these 
monthly payments would be $33.60, and at the 
end of ten years the home would be clear of all 
incumbrances. 

There would be a provision for an adequate 
reserve invested in United States bonds, and the 
remainder would be loaned in communities 
where the deposits were made, for the sole pur- 
pose of aiding Americans desirous of owning 
their own homes. 
4 i Is it too much to expect that five selected men, 
residents of the community, can properly ap- 
praise the home offered as security and can 
successfully pass on the honesty and ability of 
a neighbor to repay the loan? 

Hundreds of thousands of merchants are mak- 
ing loans to their customers every day, in many 
cases to amounts involving thousands of dollars. 
They take 100% risk, that is they have no secur- 
ity save their customer's record for honesty and 
his word of honor. Yet the whole fabric of 
American business is built on just such confi- 
dence and credit. 

How much additional security is there when 
back of a loan are not only the honor and integ- 
rity and character of the borrower, but the 
home itself. Officials of some of the largest 



206 The Community Capitol. 

home building companies in America have 
stated that after a quarter of a century and 
more of experience they have never lost a dollar 
through the deliberate default of a home pur- 
chaser, even though they carried mortgages to 
an amount equal to 90% of the value of their 
homes. 

It is not to be supposed that the American, 
borrowing the money of his neighbors for the 
purchase of a permanent home, will be more 
ready to default in his obligations to himself, 
his community and his own government. 

Certainly the deposits in the postal savings 
banks form a trust fund and should be so re- 
garded. But that means far more than simply 
holding them securely and without loss. It 
means that there is an obligation so to use these 
funds that they will advance the public welfare. 
That obligation has been forgotten entirely un- 
der the present system. The deposits of the 
people are placed in the banks and there is no 
control whatever over their use to see that they 
are used to aid Americans and not exploit them. 

Those who talk so loudly of the sacredness of 
trust funds should remember that such sanctity 
applies first of all to their use. They should be 
used as far as possible in the community in 
which they were saved. They should be used 
for a constructive purpose such as enabling the 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 207 

worthy American citizen to own his own home. 

No more worthy use of a trust fund could be 
made, and through the great postal service, link- 
ing up the individual and the community with 
the National Government there may be estab- 
lished an American credit union, to the everlast- 
ing benefit of the nation. It will be financed 
with the savings of the people, guarded and con- 
trolled by them through their own great agency 
of public service, the United States Postal 
System; that institution which, as President 
Jackson said, ''Should serve the body politic, 
as the veins and arteries serve the natural 
body. ' ' 

The United States Postal Commission in 1844 
defined the purpose of the postal service as 
follows : 

''To render the citizen worthy by proper 
knowledge and enlightenment of his important 
privileges as a sovereign constituent of the gov- 
ernment; to diffuse enlightenment, social im- 
provement, national affinities, elevating our peo- 
ple in the scale of civilization and bringing 
them together in patriotic affection. ' ' 

In no possible way could these purposes of the 
postal service be carried out so effectively as by 
establishing a people's postal bank in every 
American community, with the savings of the 



208 The Community Capitol. 

citizens used for the best interests of the indi- 
vidual, community and nation. 

This official declaration points with irresist- 
ible logic to the coordination of the post office 
and the public school. Exactly the same defi- 
nition, without a single word changed, could be 
given for the public school system of America. 

The public school building is the educational 
center of the American neighborhood. It should 
be the community center, where the citizens 
gather for discussion and decision of their 
problems. 

It should also be the postal center, with a 
credit union for the community welfare, where 
neighbors cooperate in saving and home build- 
ing. 

Is it not vastly better that this cooperation 
should be among neighbors than among fellow 
trades-unionists, fellow grangers or fellow 
members of any subordinate group whatever? 

America is not a collection of groups or sects 
or classes. It is a vast fraternity of individual 
Americans. 

The real credit union in America can best be 
established by Americans in the community, as 
they deposit their savings in the hands of the 
government which represents the public inter- 
est against all private interests. In the com- 
munity control of these deposits, the lesson of 



/ 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 209 

common responsibility and common rights will 
be learned with incalculable benefits to the 
nation. 

The Schools as Teachees of Thkift. 

The meaning of thrift will be best taught in 
the school where the postal savings bank re- 
ceives the savings of youth and adult, with the 
assurance that every dollar saved will help to 
make a better, happier, more prosperous com- 
munity. 

S. W. Straus, President of the American 
Thrift Society, says, ^^ After years spent in a 
study of thrift, both in this country and in for- 
eign lands, the following conclusion has been 
reached. The one best way to make sure that 
the American of to-morrow will be thrifty is to 
begin to-day to teach the lesson of thrift in the 
schools. '' 

^^The facilities for saving should begin in the , 
school house, ^' says Milton Harrison, Executive 
Manager of the Savings Bank Association of 
the State of New York. 

He further says, *^ Saving money easily be- 
comes a habit with the ordinary child. There is 
no school lesson the child could learn that will 
produce better results than that of depositing 
his pennies and nickels, real money, in the 
schooPs savings bank. It gives him an appre- 

14 



210 The Community Capitol. 

ciation of individual independence, which if it 
were learned by all the people, would advance 
our civilization a thousand years. The estab- 
lishment of school savings banks is eminently 
important in further development of thrift fa- 
cilities. ' ^ 

Granted that these arguments of eminent 
apostles of thrift are true, the fact remains that 
the efforts made since 1885 in America, to estab- 
lish school savings banks, have met with little 
success. 

The logical method to secure the benefits of 
schools savings banks is clearly pointed out in 
the logical coordination of postal service and 
public schools. 

Park View School, in the city of Washington, 
has for two years been an organized community 
center and also a postal station of the Wash- 
ington post office. 

Miss Frances S. Fairley, who is principal of 
the school and community secretary, in her re- 
port of two years ' experience says : 

**Not only has the post office in the school 
served as a convenience to the public, but as an 
educational factor in school life, its value cannot 
be overestimated. The children attend largely 
to the postal affairs of the family; they mail 
letters, insure packages, learn weights and rates 
of different classes of mail matter, register let- 



People 's Banks and People 's Homes. 211 

ters, and make out money order applications, 
learn about postal zones, and so are brought 
into direct personal relation with the greatest 
institution of world exchange. ' ' 

That postal station in the school house sold 
more Thrift and War Savings Stamps than any 
other station in the city. It should be made a 
postal savings bank and stand as a memorial of 
the important fact that saving and spending for 
peace is as patriotic a duty as saving and spend- 
ing for war. By encouraging the establishment 
of the postal station and postal savings banks 
in the public schools, and by furnishing the 
chance for Americans to own their own homes 
out of their own savings, we may banish for the 
future the waste and extravagance which has 
shamed us as a nation. 

Such a plan goes to the very heart of the prob- 
lem, for it will increase savings. It will encour- 
age real thrift among the American people. All 
the money needed is right here in America. 
David Friday, of the University of Michigan, 
after careful study, estimates that the national 
income in 1917 was $65,515,000,000. Thirty 
billions is received as wages by labor and the 
value of farm products is 24 billions. It is a 
conservative supposition that 25 billion dollars 
is received annually by those who are tenants 
and rent payers. 



212 The Community Capitol. 

In view of the fact that one-fourth of the aver- 
age wage earners' income is paid for rent, a 
total sum of at least six billion dollars is being 
expended for rental, without the slightest asset 
remaining in the end for those who make the ex- 
penditure. These payments capitalized into 
home ownership would meet the need for house 
construction in America and more besides. 

Saving money is not all of thrift or even the 
most important part. Saving money, in itself, 
is not even praiseworthy. If it were the miser 
and the niggard would be the most worthy citi- 
zens. A nation of misers would mean for 
America stagnation, business paralysis, and 
ultimate destruction. In fact the man who 
hoards his money in a hiding place is doing as 
little for the national welfare as the spendthrift 
who wastes his substance in riotous living. 

The great organized thrift agencies, of course, 
urge the people to save every penny possible 
and deposit it in banks to be loaned. But even 
that may not be thrift, from a national stand- 
point, for the banks may send these accumu- 
lated savings to great money centers where the 
highest rates prevail and thus help build a finan- 
cial imperialism, of deadly danger to the Amer- 
ican people. 

Any thrift program which means the common 
good must go beyond saving and look also to 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 213 

spending. Euskin well says, ^^The vital ques- 
tion for individuals and nations is not, ^how 
much do you make or save, but to what purpose 
do you spend?' '' 

Thrift means better buying. It means sen- 
sible spending. The man who is truly thrifty 
will spend more than the prodigal, for his sav- 
ing gives him more to spend. Two individuals 
have incomes of $2,000 each, on which to sup- 
port their families. One spends every dollar on 
consumers' goods, while the other saves $200, 
on which he receives interest at 4%. Next year 
he has $2,008 income, while his thriftless neigh- 
bor has but $2,000. The vastly important 
feature is, that when the saving goes into con- 
struction, the benefit accrues to the community 
and nation as well as to the individual. 

Thrift is a much-needed virtue in the United 
States, but the main reason for the fact that we 
stand in the unlucky position of thirteenth in 
the list of great nations as to the number of sav- 
ings banks depositors is that there has been fur- 
nished no concrete, obvious incentive for thrift, 
such as the ownership of a home. The average 
American will not save unless there is a goal 
ahead, whose possession is more desirable than 
present expenditure. Furnish him a place to 
store his savings in absolute security and at a 
fair return, such as can be afforded by a real 



214 The Community Capitol. 

postal savings bank, and assure him that his 
savings will be used for the construction of 
homes, with equal chance for him to have a home- 
owning opportunity, and you have furnished the 
concrete thing to embody or measure his thrift 
and set before him the best investment in Amer- 
ica — a home. 

Theift Is Paeent of Peoductive Powee. 

That kind of thrift directs productive power 
toward the making of tools, machinery and 
building materials which add to the permanent 
wealth of America. It reduces the amount of 
money spent on useless luxuries, money which is 
a greater national loss than though it were 
dumped into the sea. That is true because the 
demand directs production and when useless 
things are produced, the man power used is 
wasted, which is more serious than the loss of 
money itself. 

When a man saves money by cutting down 
current expenses in order to invest in a home, 
he saves more than dollars and more than the 
goods he refrained from buying. He saves the 
labor and materials it takes to produce those 
goods and helps to liberate them for the pro- 
duction of every commodity which enters into 
the construction and equipment of an American 
home. 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 215 

Those who complain that the saving of four 
billion dollars a year and the turning of that 
fund into building operations will injure other 
lines of business deserve but one reply. Yes, it 
will injure some other lines of business which 
cater to harmful and useless desires and that 
injury will mean incalculable benefit to America. 

America can well afford to lose a few chew- 
ing gum factories if she can add more cement 
grinding factories. She can forego a few 
limousines in order to get more lumber yards. 
Brickkilns mean more for national prosperity 
than beauty parlors, and plumbing fixtures are 
better than perfumes and patent medicines. 

If America can set more stonecutters to 
work she can dispense with a few diamondcut- 
ters. She can thrive with more carpenters and 
fewer confectioners. She will gain vastly 
through more dwelling houses and fewer hot- 
houses and a few Paris fashions may be omitted 
in order to gain more American furniture. 

We may rest assured that the turning of 
channels of production into useful lines will 
mean employment for more workers and greater 
prosperity for the individual American. 

^^Then,'' says someone, **The problem is 
easy. Appeal to the individual and show him 
the advantages of sensible saving and spend- 
ing. ' ' 



216 



The Community Capitol. 



That has been largely the method of the great 
organized thrift agencies of America and they 
have preached thrift with method and enthusi- 
asm. 

Still, 75% of those who die in America leave 
estates of less than $500 in value, and the Amer- 
ican Bankers Association declares that 90% of 
the Americans who reach the age of 65 are 
partly or wholly dependent on relatives, friends 
or the public. 

In spite of all thrift arguments 60% of Amer- 
ican families live in rented quarters and the 
majority of Americans are tenants, without a 
foothold in America. 

No, we might as well admit that the problem 
of home ownership is not to be solved wholly by 
the efforts of the individual. The average 
worker in America cannot buy his own home 
without some method of cooperation, which will 
enable him to secure the initial cash payment 
and pay for his home out of his savings. 

America has found that more wealth is pro- 
duced through cooperation of many persons 
working together, than by any equal number of 
individuals working separately. 

America must also learn that cooperation in 
saving creates a collective force which is vastly 
greater than the separate savings of individ- 
uals. 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 217 

Therefore general home ownership in America 
is a community problem quite as much as an in- 
dividual problem. Just as the factory is a kind 
of cooperative enterprise where individuals are 
links in the chain of production, so the Amer- 
ican community must become the organized 
entity for carrying out the program of home 
ownership for its members. 

There is a post office in every community and 
the enlarged postal savings bank may be logi- 
cally made the community credit union for the 
service of all the people. 

There must a share of community control in 
the machinery for making loans for home build- 
ing, for neighbors best know the habits of thrift, 
industry and integrity of borrowers and in- 
dorsers. The community is interested for it 
profits from every new home built and from 
every family which becomes a home owner. 

After all the approval of neighbors can be 
made a powerful motive for thrift, and it has 
been largely overlooked by those who have 
urged thrift in America. 

There is a deep-seated hunger in man for ap- 
proval and admiration and a shrinking from 
scorn and derision. 

One trouble has been that in most communi- 
ties there has been ridicule for the thrifty per- 
son as a *^ tight wad'' and ** miser,'' and such 



218 The Community Capitol. 

public sentiment has led to extravagance and 
wastefulness and thriftlessness. The com- 
munity has been so honey-combed with de- 
lusions concerning money and its saving and 
spending that it has been an almost impossible 
task to persuade the public that thrift is a pa- 
triotic duty, in peace as well as in war. 

A transformation can be affected by the estab- 
lishment of a real people's bank in the post 
ofifice of the community, where the savings of 
the people are used for building homes and ad- 
vancing individual community welfare. 

Then the community members would see that 
savings and their purchasing power can direct 
and control the wheels of industry and that 
thrift is no penny-counting, cheese-paring, 
money-hoarding policy, but a great constructive 
force which can be directed against all harmful 
processes and made to advance the happiness 
and welfare of all Americans. 

Criminal Wastes Will Be Remedied. 

This plan furnishes a definite, systematic pro- 
gram to change public sentiment and public 
practice from harmful habits of thriftlessness 
into channels of constructive thrift. I contend 
that without such a redirection of public ap- 
proval, all appeals to individual thrift will fail 
in the future as they have failed in the past. 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 219 

Once let useless and reckless expenditure of 
money be frowned on by the community as in- 
feriority, and it will shrink away as a vice in- 
stead of flaunting itself as a virtue, and thrift 
will take the place of prodigality. 

The thrift I advocate will turn public atten- 
tion to inexcusable wastes in America. The 
waste of lumber is criminal. Less than half the 
tree now reaches the buyer, the rest going to 
waste in the forest, sawmill and elsewhere 
along the line of distribution. That annual 
waste of lumber is estimated at four billion 
cubic feet, sufficient to build many thousands of 
the houses so sorely needed. To that loss must 
be added also the waste caused by forest fires, 
which destroy $50,000,000 worth of timber 
every year. 

With the head of every American family di- 
rectly interested in building materials as a pos- 
sible home owner, there will come remedy for 
this shocking waste of products which are essen- 
tial in the construction of American homes. 

So, too, the enlightened selfishness which 
springs from direct interest will make impos- 
sible the blackmailing conspiracies and grafting 
tactics, as in the building situation in New York 
City, as exposed by the Lockwood Investigating 
Committee. Aroused public interest will prove 



220 The Community Capitol. 

the cure for dishonest construction, which in- 
flates building costs. 

This plan will make of the community a self- 
developing neighborhood, where the Ishmael 
philosophy of every man for himself, gives way 
to the far better teaching ^^all for one, one for 
all, and all together for the common cause. ' ' 

There have been thousands of ^ ^friendly so- 
cieties" organized in England for lending 
money to members. Why not make every 
American community a Friendly Society of 
Citizens using their own public agencies for the 
public good. 

Can it be done safely? In Italy the people's 
bank has been making for twenty years what 
they call Loans of Honor. The borrowers are 
persons who are unable to furnish any security 
whatever save their word of honor that they 
will repay the loan. The losses in these Loans 
of Honor have been insignificant. Has the 
Italian more integrity than the American! Is 
the Italian character more trustworthy than the 
citizen of America? 

I will not believe it. The average American 
is honest and faithful and can be trusted to 
prove worthy of a loan from the savings of his 
neighbors and himself, to enable him to own his 
own home. That process of possession and ac- 
complishment, through the cooperation of neigh- 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 221 

bors will bring with it stability and responsibil- 
ity and good citizenship. His home will be a 
monument to his own thrift, a place of refuge 
and comfort and security, for himself and his 
family, not only, but it will also be a monument 
to that cooperation and mutual help which are 
essentials of true community spirit. 

The home has always meant the noble senti- 
ments of love and unity in family life. It can 
and should be made to mean the noble sentiment 
of neighborly kindness and community brother- 
hood. But some one says, '^ Admit that general 
home ownership is a problem for the coopera- 
tion of the people of the community. Why then 
does not the community organize its own build- 
ing and loan association and finance the building 
of its own homes ? ' ' 

That has been the theory of the founders of 
building and loan associations. They have done 
a splendid service but with all their efforts, ten- 
antry increases each year and more and more 
families live in rented quarters. 

This problem cannot be solved by the indi- 
vidual alone, nor by the community alone. It is 
a national problem and there must be used some 
coordinating agency, such as the American 
Postal Service, if there is to be a solution. 

An Associated Press dispatch in the news- 
papers recently carried the statement that the 



222 The Community Capitol. 

entire village of Sparta, in New York, had been 
purchased by Frank A. Vanderlip, the New 
York banker. This financier, recognizing the 
importance of the housing situation, declared 
that he would erect twenty modern apartment 
houses and several other buildings. 

His own statement was eloquent: ^^The vil- 
lage is filled with undesirable citizens, * ' he said, 
*'but when it is reconstructed, I hope to get 
some nice people. ' ' 

Is that the solution of the problem? A com- 
munity here and there under some lord of the 
manor, who with omnipotent wisdom, will part 
the sheep from the goats and banish the goats 
to outer darkness! If that is the best solution, 
then feudalism is the best social order, and free- 
dom is a delusion. 

And what is to become of the ^^undesirable 
citizens'' however exiled from the community 
in order to make room for '^nice people"! 
They still remain in America and some other 
community must of necessity admit their pres- 
ence. America gains nothing from the transfer 
and the problem is not only not solved but is 
made more vexing than ever. 

No, the housing problem, and the home-owner- 
ship problem is an American as well as a com- 
munity problem. 

It is essential to remember that there can be 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 223 

no real community in America without com- 
nmnication. Isolation means destruction of the 
community. When any collection of individuals 
builds a wall of separation between itself and 
the rest of America, the sure result is decay, 
disease, destruction. When people refuse to 
see America whole and refuse to share with all 
others in America's rights and duties, they 
doom themselves. 

There have been many so-called American 
communities, founded on separation, where 
every member possessed his own home. Some 
of these artificial assemblages have been made 
up of atheists and some of religious fanatics, 
some have sought their spiritual welfare and 
others have reached for purely material ad- 
vantage for their members but all have failed 
to reach their goal. 

Peter Armstrong founded the Celesta com- 
munity in Sullivan county, Pennsylvania, in 
1852. He proposed to live with his fellow-mem- 
bers and to allow no outside influences to touch 
them. He addressed a petition to the Pennsyl- 
vania legislature setting forth that he and his 
followers had ^^ resolved to retire peaceably 
from the entanglements of the outside world 
and renounce all allegiance to earthly govern- 
ments, purposing, in the face of an unbelieving 
world, to gather and make a wilderness prepa- 



224 The Community Capitol. 

ration for the true Canaan. ' ^ He further asked 
that *Hhe people of Celesta, now and hence- 
forth be considered as peaceable aliens and reli- 
gious wilderness exiles from the rest of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. ' ' 

But Armstrong learned that facts are stub- 
born things. He and his followers found that 
the principle of separation is an impossible 
basis for association. Division and dissensions 
arose even in Celesta. In a few years the com- 
munity was dissolved. The tract of land upon 
which it was established and which had been 
deeded to Almighty God ^^that it might be sub- 
jected to bargain and sale by man's cupidity no 
more forever '^ was finally sold for taxes and 
again became subject to bargain and sale under 
American laws. 

The Separatists of Zoar community, at Zoar, 
Ohio, turned their backs to the great American 
community and refused to have a share in the 
giant task of freedom in the Civil War. One 
of the leaders said that ^Hhe one great object of 
the community was to help its members get to 
heaven.'' The complete dissolution of the 
community may be taken as proof that the path- 
way to heaven cannot be found through defiance 
of the great command, '^Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself. ' ' 

There have been Perfectionists, and Harmon- 




o 
o 
X 
o 

H 
X 
H 



'-^ 5 



^ ■> 

o ^ 

o =^ 

o 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 225 

ists and True Inspirationists who founded com- 
munities in America in order to lead the hermit 
life. The founder of one of them wrote Rules 
for Daily Life, which sum up the purposes of 
them all. He said : 

*^Have no intercourse with worldly-minded 
men; never seek their society; speak little with 
them and never without need; and then not 
without fear and trembling. Do not waste time 
in public places and worldly society, that ye be 
not tempted and led away. Contain yourself, 
remain at home, in the house and in your heart. ' ' 

One and all of these organizations, whose 
members pledged themselves never to join or 
cooperate in any other human association have 
been engulfed in oblivion. They sinned against 
the light of fellowship and brotherhood. When 
separation is made the creed of a community, 
the poisonous effects spread to the individual 
members. Through the history of all these at- 
tempts to found hermit communities runs the 
scarlet thread of division and dissension. Fac- 
tions rise and secede from the parent body. 
Malcontent members are admitted and hasten 
to the work of destruction. Eric Jansen, foun- 
der of the Jansenist community at Bishop Hill, 
Illinois, was shot to death by one of his mem- 
bers. Etienne Cabet, founder of the Icarian 
communities, was expelled in disgrace by his 

15 



226 The Community Capitol. 

associates. Thomas Lake Harris with his 
Brotherhood of New Life communities, had his 
Lawrence Oliphant, who disrupted his ''angel 
planned ' ' neighborhoods. 

Nor have the Separatist communities based 
on economic doctrines been more successful 
than those founded on religious ideals. 

There was the Brook Farm community, with 
its array of brilliant members and supporters, 
which found, according to one of its leaders, 
that although "there were philosophers enough 
in it, the hard-fisted toilers and the brave finan- 
ciers were absent. '^ There was the North 
American Phalanx, with Horace Greely as its 
patron, but it too, went to destruction because of 
secessions and inner struggles. 

Fourierism led to the founding of twenty 
communities between 1841 and 1844, but one 
and all perished from the earth because of en- 
mities caused by separation. The Equality 
communities and the Ruskin Commonwealths 
went down amid civil wars and internal disputes 
and the annihilated hopes of their members. 

'' Isolation ' ' Contains Seed of Destkuction. 

All of these so-called communities have been 
cloistered retreats which contained within them- 
selves the seed of their destruction. The first 
one established in this country was at Ephrata 



People 's Banks and People 's Homes. 227 

in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and its 
headquarters was called the Kloister. I have 
seen its great wooden buildings, which were 
erected like the temple at Jerusalem, without 
the sound of a hammer and which contained 
hundreds of cell-like rooms. A life of seclusion 
and separation was the ideal of Conrad Beissel 
and his followers. In the utter desolation which 
reigns there to-day, one may read the fallacy of 
such a theory in American life. Just as the 
wounded Revolutionary soldiers took possession 
of the buildings after the Battle of Brandywine 
so the realities of life have swept away the her- 
mit existence of the brothers of Ephrata. The 
Kloister stands as a symbol, in its desertion and 
despair, of the impossibility of any community 
shutting itself away from the currents of Amer- 
ican life. It canot be accomplished and every 
serious attempt to do so has met the doom of 
destruction. 

Not only must communities in America be 
organized on the all-inclusive principle, so that 
every resident may realize his membership, but 
the communities must be joined in intercourse 
and fellowship with all other American com- 
munities. Communicate means to share with 
others and every community must share with 
all others in working out the destiny and glory 
of America. There must be a process of shar- 



228 The Community Capitol. 

ing experience until it becomes a common ex- 
perience for only thus may errors be rejected 
and the truth made victorious. 

The need is to have the local community con- 
nected directly with the national capitol at 
Washington and then with all other communi- 
ties. The coordination found in the human 
brain is essential to the welfare of the nation. 
In the brain are from 600,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 
cells, each having a separate existence. With- 
out them, or with them only, man would be a 
clod. These cells are connected by from 4 to 5 
billion fibres which convey impressions from 
one cell to another and bring about coordinated 
and combined action. 

How shall this coordination be accomplished? 
In every community there is a post office, and 
connecting every community is the postal serv- 
ice, the greatest system of communication in the 
world. 

Better than in any other way, we may thus 
make it possible to say in the days to come that 
'*we are a happy people, a prosperous people 
and a peaceable people, because we are a home- 
owning people. ' ' 

Out of our mighty resources and marvelous 
thrift in 1917 and 1918, we built the mightiest 
war machine the world has ever seen. We built 
a bridge of ships from New York to Bordeaux 



People's Banks and People's Homes. 229 

and over it sent two million men, better fed and 
better equipped than any army since the world 
began. 

You remember how posters and signboards 
and advertisements in the newspapers and ora- 
tors on platforms told the American people 
what their savings would buy for the soldier 
boys fighting under Old Glory in Flanders 
Fields and for the soldiers training in the camps 
at home. 

A single thrift stamp bought a tent pole, a 
belt, a hat cord or an identification tag. Two 
thrift stamps bought a pair of woolen gloves. 
Four bought two pairs of leggings, and six 
bought five pairs of woolen socks. 

One war savings stamp bought a hundred 
cartridges, or a scabbard for a bayonet. Two 
bought a gas mask. Three bought an overcoat 
and five bought a rifle. 

Under the patriotic inspiration of saving for 
war, America astonished the world, and then 
with the victory won, threw off restraint and ex- 
travagance reigned again. 

It is high time to call attention to the fact that 
there is patriotism in saving for peace. Let us 
raise aloft the slogan, not by preaching thrift 
for itself, but by creating the machinery neces- 
sary to prove it to the complete satisfaction of 
the average man, the real ruler of America. 



230 The Community Capitol. 

Let us put up the far nobler posters of peace, 
showing that a home savings stamp will buy 
lumber, bricks, cement, house-fittings. Let us 
prove that home savings stamps will buy homes, 
and that home-owning means patriotism and 
victory now just as much as guns and ammuni- 
tion meant patriotism and victory during the 
war. America fought for the protection of 
American homes against Prussia. Let us show 
that that fight was not in vain. 

Let us advertise the fact that a man who now 
pays $30 a month rent and has nothing to show 
for it in the end, may deposit that amount in the 
people's bank in his community and at the end 
of ten years have enough to buy his home out- 
right, or through the cooperation with his neigh- 
bors may live in his own house, while he pays 
for it out of his savings. 

Let us give every man, woman and child, di- 
rect contact with their government through their 
deposits made in the home post office, and thus 
make every citizen realize his membership in 
America. 

Justice, patriotism, necessity and business 
sense unite in this coordination of individual, 
community and National Government for home 
building. Out of such mobilization and use of 
the resources of America may come the modem 



People 's Banks and People 's Homes. 231 

fruition of the ancient plan of Jubilee, with 
every worthy citizen of America dwelling in his 
own home and eating in happiness the bread he 
has earned. To have hoped for that day and 
worked for its coming is to be a lover of 
America. 



Part V 
The One Big Union— America ' 



V. 
THE ONE BIG UNION— AMERICA. 

The glare of the labor question is in our eyes. 
It cannot be ignored. It cannot be sneered 
down or ridden down. It must be faced and 
settled with finality in the here and now. 

It is no new question, for it has puzzled and 
baffled men in all the ages. Its scarlet thread in 
the web of human annals tells of bloody strug- 
gles and portrays the fierce shapes of old enmi- 
ties. Down all the years of the past there come 
the clangor of arms and the cries of combatants, 
engaged in the most terrible of all conflicts — the 
social wars of mankind. 

In America, the industrial revolution, which 
changed completely the structure and organiza- 
tion of industry, began during the period of our 
war for political independence. It was then 
that the steam engine harnessed the power of 
nature to whirring wheels. The steam boat and 
the locomotive followed and transportation took 
on new meaning. Machines of every kind were 
invented to perfect production. The simple 
tools and implements which had been used by 
individual workmen gave way to these expen- 

235 



236 The Community Capitol. 

sive power machines. Employers, organized 
for mammoth production, built great factories, 
and in time, armies of workers, employed in 
these mighty plants, were performing the in- 
dustrial tasks of the nation. 

American industrial history is therefore the 
history of the factory system. The labor prob- 
lem here is whether or not, under that system, 
justice can be secured, the rights of employers 
safeguarded and the right of men to an oppor- 
tunity to labor on just and reasonable terms, 
assured. 

We must recognize the fact that the system 
makes certain that the chances are overwhelm- 
ing that the present wage earners will always be 
wage earners. In the cotton manufacturing busi- 
ness there are 2,765 wage earners to one proprie- 
tor and in many other industries the proportion 
is still greater. It is worse than useless to keep 
repeating the parrot cry, ^ ^ There is always room 
at the top'' for there is not room at the top for 
everybody in modern industry. There is far 
more chance of a steel worker being burned to 
death in a vat of molten metal than in his becom- 
ing president of the United States Steel Cor- 
poration. 

The vastly important thing is, not that there 
shall be room at the top for everybody, but that 
there shall be room for everybody in America 



The One Big Union — America. 237 

to develop to his very best capabilities, under 
conditions that are just and fair. 

The experience of a century and more has 
taught us that the factory system, in itself, does 
not assure justice. The ^4et alone" policy of 
Adam Smith, which was to bring the square deal 
as the result of the free play of individual sel- 
fishness, has proved a bitter fallacy. Under the 
law of tooth and claw, in the storm of jungle 
competition, the life and flesh and blood of 
workers are always regarded as commodities to 
be purchased in the lowest market possible. 

Perhaps the results of the Ishmael philosophy 
applied to industry, are best given by the United 
States government itself in its advertising 
posters soliciting the enlistment of young men 
in the Navy. 

In these huge advertisements, placarded over 
the entire country, the differences between jobs 
in civil life and in the United States Navy are 
summarized. In civil life it is declared that — 
*^Jobs are uncertain, there are strikes, layoffs 
and sickness. Promotion and advancement are 
uncertain and slow. Favoritism and partiality 
are frequently shown. The pay is small and 
limited while learning a trade. There is the 
same old, monotonous grind every day. The 
working place is stutfy, gloomy and uninterest- 
ing. The pay stops and the doctor bills start 



238 The Community Capitol. 

when sickness comes. Little or no pay if dis- 
abled or injured. On death, the family gets 
only what has been saved from small wages. 
Little clear money and nearly all the pay goes 
for living expenses. When old age comes the 
job goes to a younger and more active man.'' 

Steife Sows Seeds of Future Conflict. 

That is the summary of the industrial system 
as given by Uncle Sam himself. It is the gov- 
ernment of the United States giving the condi- 
tions of the workers in our modern industry. 
Little wonder that such a situation has been a 
sullen incentive to anarchy and strife. 

There have been ominous storms of protest. 
From Pittsburgh, Homestead, Lawrence, West 
Virginia, Colorado, Michigan and many other 
places have come the echoes of great labor bat- 
tles, where workers have sought to secure just 
conditions through force. But the violence 
which has marked countless labor disputes has 
never brought and will never bring, industrial 
justice. Each time the uprising has been 
quenched in blood. 

Still the triumphant forces have not found 
final victory. Always there has been prepared- 
ness on the part of the defeated ones for new 
conflict on the morrow. Such a spirit of revolt 
does not make for success in any undertaking 



The One Big Union — America. 239 

and the employers have lost and the nation has 
lost through the bitterness engendered by these 
struggles, to say nothing of the vast losses as 
the direct results of the battles between these 
rival groups of Americans. 

Violence will not bring justice, neither will 
it quench the urge for justice in the human 
heart. Around the walls of the balcony in the 
capitol at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in illumin- 
ated text, is a quotation from Madison : 

'Justice is the end of government. It 
is the aim of civil society. It ever has 
been pursued and always will be pur- 
sued, until it be attained, or Liberty 
lost in the pursuit. 



i i 



yy 



That saying is gospel truth. Industrial jus- 
tice has been pursued, but not yet attained in 
America. It must be secured or the Republic 
is doomed. Discontent fills the hearts of men 
and the contagion of unrest spreads like the 
plague. Let America perpetuate the hideous 
exploitation of her wage earners and less for- 
tunate classes by those who live upon the labor 
of others and her fate is sealed ; she dies a sui- 
cide. 

There is industrial war in America ; the vital 
need is industrial peace. How shall that peace 
be secured? 



240 The Community Capitol. 

Out of the confusion and strife there come 
various answers to that dynamic question. Here 
are a few great capitalists and employers, thank 
God they are very few, who step boldly forth 
with their answer — an iron ultimatum to labor. 
Frankly they declare that they would bring 
peace by the mailed fist of autocratic power. 
They would favor a nation-wide lockout, if nec- 
essary, over a period long enough to compel the 
workers to accept their terms. They would 
teach the ^^dogs" their places by starving them 
into submission. They insist that they have 
the right, legitimately and by the grace of God, 
to rule industry and that they should have the 
power to crush out resistance and compel peace. 

Strangely enough, from the opposite pole 
comes exactly the same answer. The extreme 
radicals of the labor movement, the Reds, would 
bring industrial peace also by dictatorship, but 
it would be the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
They would build up such a powerful organiza- 
tion of wage-earners that it would be able to 
make repeated assaults upon the citadels of 
capitalism and then, in one great struggle, over- 
throw it completely. Through the One Big 
Union of industry, they would take control of 
both industrial and political institutions and 
establish the soviet commonwealth, under the 
crimson flag. 



The One Big Union — America. 241 

No sane man believes that either the Bourbon 
or Bolshevik policy will bring industrial peace 
in America. They propose an absolute mon- 
archy in the day when Czar and Kaiser have 
been overthrown. Their fallacies have been 
shot to pieces on a thousand battlefields and the 
autocracy they advocate has been buried, be- 
yond hope of resurrection. In all America, 
happily, not one per cent of the people have any 
sympathy with the desires and purposes of these 
upholders of the black flag of piracy and the red 
flag of anarchy. 

Neither of these groups takes into account the 
inescapable truth that justice must precede in- 
dustrial peace. But here comes trade-unionism, 
with the declaration that it can secure justice 
and peace through complete organization of the 
workers. They insist that collective bargaining 
will insure cooperation and mutual good feeling 
between employers and employes and that the 
workers ' fair share of the product may thus be 
secured. 

Now, the War Labor Board was eternally 
right when it laid down as its first principle to 
govern relations between workers and employ- 
ers in war industries, the right of collective bar- 
gaining. It recited this right as follows : 

^^The right of workers to organize in trade- 
unions and to bargain collectively through 

16 



242 The Community Capitol. 

chosen representatives is recognized and af- 
firmed. This right shall not be denied, abridged 
or interfered with in any manner whatsoever by 
the employers. The right of employers to or- 
ganize in associations or gronps and to bargain 
collectively through chosen representatives is 
recognized and affirmed. This right shall not 
be denied, abridged or interfered with by the 
workers in any manner whatsoever. '' 

Collective bargaining between employes and 
employer is an essential in any proper organiza- 
tion of industry. The old formula ' ' freedom of 
contract'' is a lying phrase when one man is 
compelled to contract with a great corporation 
for his labor. It is then only the freedom to 
work under the conditions offered or to starve. 
Such a phrase can be used to-day only by those 
who are grewsomely facetious or incurably 
ignorant. '^Take the wages or quit the job" is 
a deadly alternative to the man who must earn 
the bread for himself and his family in the sweat 
of his brow and can find no other job. 

Organization is a shield for the employe 
against an arbitrary and despotic attitude on 
the part of the employer. In their organized 
capacity the workers can deal on equal footing 
on questions concerning wages, hours of labor, 
conditions of employment, sanitary and safety 
appliances and other factors which involve their 



The One Big Union — America. 243 

health, comfort and safety. It compels the em- 
ployer to look at his problems from both sides 
and the man who thinks only about his own 
selfish interest, soon loses the capacity to think 
intelligently about even that. 

The opposition to organized labor on the part 
of many employers on the ground that unions 
sometimes act unreasonably and brutally, is not 
conclusive. If power is to be denied all who 
abuse it, the corporations of America would be 
the first to meet the prohibition, for there are 
ten reasons for abolishing all corporations to 
one for abolishing all trade-unions. 

No intelligent man desires to outlaw corpora- 
tions and neither should he desire to ban trade- 
unions. The unions have been guilty of many 
mistakes but they have had to fight for every 
inch of their upward climb. They have had to 
travel a path filled with perilous pitfalls laid by 
enemies determined on their total destruction. 
They have faced concentrated capital, bent on 
war to the knife and knife to the hilt. They 
have met in combat an enemy with the power to 
take the means whereby their members lived. 
They have been forced to meet distorted and 
misinformed public opinion, newspaper invec- 
tive and chop logic with no means of effective 
reply. 

The unions have made manifold mistakes, it 



244 The Community Capitol. 

is true, but they were made amid the bitterness 
and hatreds of war. In spite of all, they have 
had a tremendous part in forcing recognition of 
the fact that men are more than simply hewers 
of wood and drawers of water ; that life is more 
than heart-breaking toil without hope. They 
have earned, when everything is considered, the 
approbation of right-thinking and forward- 
looking men. 

Oeganization Necessary — But Not for Battle. 

While workers should have the unquestioned 
right to organize for their own betterment, that 
right should be equally the possession of em- 
ployers. The needs of America cannot be sup- 
plied without the organized use of capital. The 
industrial achievements through which this 
nation must express her real message to the 
world can only be accomplished through close 
cooperation between the enterprises of the 
country. 

Is this then, the answer to the problem of 
attaining justice and industrial peace? Will 
100% organization of the workers of America, 
on one side, and their employers, on the other, 
permanently allay the social unrest which flames 
in America? 

No, the complete organization of capital and 
labor, with equal division of power between 



The One Big Union — America. 245 

them, will not solve the problem. That is a 
great forward step from absolute monarchy in 
industry, the kind typified by ^^ Divine Eight'' 
Baer, who declared that the anthracite coal 
mines had been committed to his keeping by the 
decree of God and therefore the output of the 
mines and the conditions of labor were his per- 
sonal responsibilities under the Almighty. It 
is a great forward step from the absolute mon- 
archy of a Lenine or Trotsky, with the bayonets 
of their Red Guard at the throats of a race of 
slaves. 

Still, carrying the answer of trade-unionism 
to its logical end, would bring us only to a 
limited monarchy in industry. It is the plan of 
Runnymede, where the barons of England in- 
sisted on sharing the power of the king. Just 
as the king and barons, when possessed of all 
power, looked upon the great mass of the people 
as made only for their prosperity, so would com- 
plete power in the joint hands of capital and 
labor mean injury to the American public and a 
renewed blazing up of revolt and discontent. 

It is of vital importance that neither or both 
of these two parties in industry become group 
brigands to prey upon the rest of the com- 
munity. Organized Capital must not be per- 
mitted to profiteer at the expense of Labor, nor 
must Labor be allowed to exact profiteering 



246 The Community Capitol. 

wages simply because its organization is power- 
ful enough to enforce its demands. There is an 
interest higher than the interest of either or 
both of them — the public interest. 

It will not suffice for groups of us to get to- 
gether, for the most harmonious agreement be- 
tween employers and employes might mean 
benefit for these rival forces, while every other 
element in America is injured. When the em- 
ployer grants a wage increase to his workers 
and immediately tacks it to the price of his 
product, together with a a percentage of profit, 
the public pays the bill. And that means, of 
course, that these workers themselves are caught 
in the vicious cycle for as consumers they soon 
find that the increased pay envelope is still in- 
sufficient to meet expenses. 

In fact, all the widely-heralded increases in 
wages between 1913 and 1920 left the average 
worker in far worse position that he was in the 
beginning. Based on the cost of living, the 
workers in America in 1919 received only 69 
cents in real wages where they received $1.00 
in 1913. The real interests of labor depend 
upon the recognition of their solidarity of inter- 
est and obligation as members of America, part 
of the great public, which includes all groups. 

There can be no industrial peace without 
social justice, and the pathway to social justice 



The One Big Union — America. 247 

is not through absolute monarchy, nor limited 
monarchy, but through democracy. That goal 
will be the crowning achievement of the indus- 
trial development of the centuries. 

The very first essential is a realization of the 
fact that industrial relations in America are not 
to be decided by Capital and Labor, acting as 
groups. Every man, woman and child has a 
life and death interest in this relationship. Not 
alone for themselves and their families do coal 
operators and miners combine to dig the black 
diamonds from the earth. Starvation and death 
in far distant places will follow their refusal or 
neglect to carry out the tasks they have under- 
taken. Let the men engaged in the management 
and operation of any one of a dozen essential 
industries fail to *^ carry on'' and the result is 
chaos, privation and death in every part of 
America. 

By the first law of nature, self-preservation, 
every American has a right to a voice in assur- 
ing such relations in industry as will mean un- 
interrupted peace and production. It is indeed 
true, in an industrial sense that 

''Like warp and woof all destinies 
Are woven fast. All linked together 
Like the keys of an organ vast. 
Tear one thread and the web ye mar, 
Break but one of a thousand keys 
And the paining jar through all shall run." 



248 The Community Capitol. 

More than that, by the law of business justice, 
every American has a right to direct influence 
in determining industrial conditions even 
though he be neither a capitalist employer nor 
a wage earning employe. There would be no 
industry without the consuming public. Neither 
profits nor wages would be possible without the 
American community, which furnishes the mar- 
ket for all products. The contention that the 
great mass of Americans must stand aside while 
comparatively small groups decide this pre- 
eminent problem is as illogical as though col- 
lectors and debtors should demand the right to 
divide between themselves the money owed to 
the firm. The public is the principal in all in- 
dustrial transactions. The people, through 
their purchasing power, commission men to 
make certain products, as surely as though they 
had given direct orders. It is the public de- 
mand which decides production and the public 
has the right to determine the conditions under 
which its goods are produced. 

The Community and Class-Disputes. 

That means that the people must get together 
for the solution of this problem, not as groups 
or classes, but as Americans, every single one 
of us, every employer and manager, every labor 
unionist and unorganized worker, every citizen. 



The One Big Union — America. 249 

The community combines in itself the opposing 
interests of Capital and Labor, both seeking a 
larger share of the product. The community is 
interested in seeing justice done both employer 
and employe, and where their interests are not 
identical, can best compose the dispute, through 
all-sided consideration. 

In a report of the Industrial Conference, 
headed by William B. Wilson, Secretary of 
Labor, and Herbert Hoover, made to the Presi- 
dent of the United States, it is recognized that 
there is a conflict of interest in certain particu- 
lars, between workers and proprietors, but con- 
cludes ^Hhat it is the part of statesmanship to 
organize identity of interest, where it exists, in 
order to reduce the field of the conflict." 

While that is true, is it not far more the part 
of statesmanship to organize the community 
identity of interest so that the conflict itself may 
be made unnecessary! We cannot expect Labor 
to break the vicious cycle of high prices. Nor 
have decent employers the power to bring about 
just conditions through their own efforts. That 
can be done however, by the community, not a 
disorganized mob fumbling over divergent poli- 
cies, but an organized entity, possessed of the 
sense of unity and the power of effective action 
in the light of all the facts involved. 

In the voice of the American public which is 



250 The Community Capitol. 

demanding justice and peace in industry, there 
are blended the tones of every right-thinking 
employer and employe. There are thousands 
of employers like that president of a Long Is- 
land cotton manufacturing plant who said, ^ ' In 
our various cotton mills we hold to the theory 
that our principal product should be happy, 
prosperous men and women first and good cot- 
ton cloth second." In time of war, too, it was 
the American Federation of Labor which was 
among the first to declare its loyalty to the gov- 
ernment, saying with virile courage and patri- 
otism. 

^^We, with the ideals of justice and liberty as 
the indispensable basis for national policies, 
offer our services to our country in every field 
of activity, to defend, safeguard and preserve 
the Eepublic of the United States against its 
enemies, whosoever they may be, and we call 
upon our fellow workers and fellow citizens, in 
the holy name of labor, justice and freedom, to 
devotedly and patriotically give their services. ' ^ 

We have no right to assume that the majority 
of American employers and employes will not 
help to establish justice and peace through 
democracy until it has been tried. We have 
been trying to find a royal road to social justice 
and a patent panacea for our industrial ills and 
it is little wonder that there has been no re- 



The One Big Union — America. 251 

sponse. The countless schemes and notions; 
the organizations for the relief of every ill under 
the sun; the commissions investigating every- 
thing in sight; have all come to nothing and 
have generally merited the contempt they re- 
ceived. No other reception could be expected 
from the flaming announcements in the daily 
newspapers of such social renovators as ^ ' Down 
with Apartment Houses,'' ^^ National Extrava- 
gance the Source of Decay/' ^'Cheaper Cuts of 
Meat," ^'Overalls Clubs," ^'Save Two Cents a 
Week and Grow Rich," * ^ Conservation of Old 
Clothes," and so on ad nauseam. 

In the midst of an avalanche of such super- 
ficialities, there is a demand coming from every 
quarter that we get down to bed rock. It is 
admitted that there are radical wrongs in our 
industrial system and that there is industrial 
war which injures every American, rich and 
poor, old and young. It is time that we buckle 
down to the solution of the problem in the 
strength of all-of-us. 

In the organized public sentiment of the com- 
munity is found the one sure hope in America 
for the solution of the vexing labor question. 
When a party of gold-seekers, on their way to 
the Klondyke became confused in a maze of 
mountains and had no maps to guide them, they 
climbed to the highest possible point, surveyed 



252 The CoMMUNiTy Capitgl. 

the country beyond, discussed the possibilities 
of the situation and then took a vote as to which 
pass they should use in their effort to get to 
their Promised Land. Sometimes, they made 
mistakes and were forced to return to the start- 
ing place or to climb another pass. But they 
remained united. If they had divided into little 
groups, each taking the different routes which 
presented themselves, the entire party would 
have perished in the snow. 

Because they all accepted the will of the ma- 
jority and remained together, they reached 
their destination safely. 

So, to-day, in facing the uncharted future, it 
is the obligation of every American to give his 
honest counsel for the common weal, in confer- 
ence with his fellow- Americans and then follow 
the course laid down by the majority will. It 
is the obligation of America to make possible 
the organization of the community, so that full 
and free deliberation may help toward those 
just decisions, which in spite of mistakes and 
retracings, will enable all of us to enter at last 
the Promised Land of industrial justice and 
peace. 

Only through organization of the citizenship 
in the communities of America, may we attain 
industrial democracy. This much-discussed 
democracy in industry is not secured by ^*wage 



The One Big Union — America. 253 

workers at the director's table'' nor by other 
theories which are so widely current. If the 
English plan of ^^ workers' control" were car- 
ried to the end desired by its enthusiasts and 
control were finally surrendered by employers 
to their wage-earners, even then we might have 
an autocracy in industry which would work 
deadly injury to the American public and settle 
none of the vexing phases of the labor problem. 

CONTKOL BY AlL THE PeOPLE MaKES DeMOCKACY. 

Democracy is not realized by shifting partial 
or entire control from one group to the other. 
It is the control of all the people in every factor, 
social, political and industrial which makes 
American civilization. 

That means government of the people, for the 
people and by the people. But the people can 
not govern unless they can get together for 
mutual counsel and conference. And ready for 
the use of American communities, as capitols in 
which they may formulate their will, stands the 
great public school system of the nation. The 
community of ownership in the school building 
proves the community of interest. The school 
building is the center of the neighborhood: it 
is the logical assembly house of the people. 

Not in great buildings erected by manufac- 
turer's associations and chambers of commerce, 



254 The Community Capitol. 

nor in labor temples, will this flaming problem 
of industrial justice be solved. Only in the as- 
semblies of the community, in the publicly- 
owned school buildings, will the hostilities of 
warring groups be transformed into fellowship. 
Only there will it be realized that organizations 
of labor and capital are not ends in themselves, 
but means to an end — the advancement of the 
common good. 

Such a statement is not theory; it has been 
demonstrated a fact in actual experience. In 
no industrial center in the United States, dur- 
ing the period of the war with Germany, was 
the economic conflict more acute than in Bridge- 
port, Connecticut. The War Labor Board of- 
ficially declared that in this city the trouble 
became so widespread that it finally terminated 
in ^Hhe case of the employes versus the em- 
ployers of Bridgeport. ' ' 

After full investigation, the War Labor 
Board, headed by William H. Taft and Frank 
P. Walsh, made its award, which contained as 
its first provision, the right of collective bar- 
gaining. Almost every industry in the city was 
unorganized, so that it became necessary to 
affect new organizations of the workers. 

The report of the United States Bureau of 
Education for 1919 shows the methods adopted 
for meeting this problem. It is stated in this 



The One Big Union — America. 255 

report that the only housing that would serve 
for the coming together of the whole body of 
employes to exercise the right of collective bar- 
gaining was the equipment of the public school 
system. 

The city Board of Education recognized the 
right of the citizens of the several local districts 
to assemble for organized conference and co- 
operation in the school buildings, and furnished 
from public funds the money to pay the inci- 
dental expenses of such assemblies. The War 
Labor Board furnished out of the public funds 
appropriated for its work, a due proportion of 
the compensation of the local community secre- 
taries, chosen, not by employes alone, nor by 
employers alone, nor by both groups together, 
but by the whole body of citizens, organized as 
a community association in each school district. 

The community secretary was responsible, 
under this all-inclusive citizenship association, 
for supervision of all special group uses of the 
school building. The employes met in the 
school buildings and formulated their decisions. 
The public was fully informed of the action 
taken and it was discussed in the community 
assembly in such a spirit of fair play that both 
employes and employers expressed their grati- 
fication. 

The ^^unconditional surrender" demand of 



256 The Community Capitol. 

the employers was modified by conditions. The 
^ * irreducible minimum' ' of the workers was re- 
duced in various particulars and the compro- 
mises were the result of an enlightened, 
organized, public sentiment. 

The Bureau of Education makes this state- 
ment concerning the success of the plan : 

^^ There were no incidents of disorder in the 
uses that were made of the school buildings, 
despite the intensity of hostile feeling that 
prevailed in the city, and a fundamentally im- 
portant demonstration was given that when ade- 
quate and permanent provision is made for the 
use of the public school buildings, in accordance 
with the essential principles of the district 
school meeting, the instrumentality is secured 
for dealing democratically with the problems of 
industrial adjustment, by means of debate in- 
stead of dynamite." 

In the community spirit, which builds civic 
pride and civic health both employers and em- 
ployes in Bridgeport joined and worked with a 
will for the common good. Public sentiment in- 
spired them both to a self-respecting desire to 
ask only what was just and fair to all concerned. 
Their desire to merit popular good will and the 
knowledge that the entire community was in- 
formed as to all aspects of the situation, made 
harmonious agreement easy. 




y-< O 



The One Big Union — America. 257 

Former Secretary of Labor Wilson, one of 
the best informed men in America on the phases 
of the labor question, has said : 

^ 'Money and hours are but incidentals in the 
fight. The real thing that is being fought over 
by employers and wage earners, is self-respect. 
The employer feels that he cannot give up for 
fear of losing his self-respect and prestige. The 
wage workers feel that they cannot give up for 
fear of losing their self-respect. Statistics show 
that pride is the one great cause of labor 
troubles." 

Is it not plain that the one best guarantee for 
the self-respect of both employers and workers 
is found in the enlighted decision of the whole 
community! In the gathering of the neighbor- 
hood; in all sided consideration of the points 
at issue, the judgment of the community carries 
with it the satisfaction to both sides of having 
met the test of the common welfare. The self- 
respect of both groups is secured and strength- 
ened because of complete recognition of the es- 
sential qualities of both planners and doers, 
leaders and followers, toilers with head and 
hand. 

That judgment of the community, every mem- 
ber of which is vitally concerned, will be more 
just than -can be secured through any other 
tribunal. The fairest way ever devised to se- 

17 



258 The Community Capitol. 

cure a fair decision on any question is to have 
men argue both sides before the community. It 
is certain then that not only will every impor- 
tant consideration have its due notice but that 
also it will have its due weight, since every ele- 
ment is fairly represented. 

Every experience in community action has 
proved that the people are fair and just. 
Groups that were afraid to trust their interests 
to the whole people have found that their doubts 
were groundless and have come to have an abid- 
ing faith in the essential good sense and desire 
for a square deal on the part of the public. 
They have been somewhat like the banker, in the 
early days of Wisconsin^ who started his finan- 
cial institution by renting an empty store build- 
ing and painting the word ' ^ Bank ' ' on the win- 
dow. On the first day a business man came in 
and deposited one hundred dollars and on the 
second day Bye citizens deposited fifty dollars 
each. In telling about it in the days of his suc- 
cess, the banker said, "Along about the third 
day I got confidence enough in the bank to put in 
a hundred myself. ' ' 

A Single Safe Depository of Power. 

The whole community is the one safe deposi- 
tory of power, worthy of the confidence of all. 
Of course, it is essential that there be real com- 



I 



The One Big Union — America. 259 

munity organization, that is an all-inclusive 
member sliip. Several cities have recently 
transformed chambers of commerce into so- 
called community service organizations. In 
their attempts to interfere with the settlement 
of labor disputes they have met the bitter hos- 
tility and uncompromising antagonism of the 
workers and their efforts have only added fuel 
to the flames. Such a condition does not de- 
velop when the entire community is organized 
in its own community house, and where every 
man and woman, by virtue of citizenship and 
residence in the community is a member. 

Such organization not only has the right of 
decision but it has the power to enforce decision. 
There is not a business in America save private 
monopolies which are intolerable in a free land 
and whose foundations of privilege can be de- 
stroyed by common action, which dares to stand 
against an aroused and organized public senti- 
ment. Millions of dollars are spent annually by 
great industries for the sole purpose of secur- 
ing the good will of the purchasing public. 
With a real consumers league, composed of 
every member of the community, the power is 
at hand to enforce conditions of production in 
accordance with the public conscience. 

Nor can labor, great as it is, win against the 
sense of justice of the organized community. 



260 The Community Capitol. 

Just contracts, fairly entered into between em- 
ployers and employes may be enforced by pub- 
lic opinion. Once tbere comes the recognition 
of the solidarity^ not of labor and not of capital, 
but of the community, the foundation will be 
laid for a better social order and the way pre- 
pared for a better day. 

The community must be organized if the bar- 
barism of strikes and lockouts, the costly wars 
of industry, are to be abolished. It would be 
the essence of injustice, under present condi- 
tions to forbid men to strike, when their welfare 
demands it. The strike is an abomination, but 
it is the one weapon in the hands of labor. Take 
that weapon away, and give them nothing in its 
place and you make workers slaves. To at- 
tempt it is folly, for work and service are mat- 
ters of the active, free determination of the 
individual. We cannot run the industries of 
America by putting in jail all those who refuse 
to work, for the one, all sufficient reason that 
there are not jails enough to meet the test. 
What is needed is a new spirit, a new motive, 
and this can only come through the understand- 
ing which follows community cooperation in the 
advancement of the common weal. 

There has been a fatal confusion in dealing 
with the strike weapon of labor. The problem 
of the righteousness of cutting up a living man 



The One Big Union — America. 261 

with a sharp knife, depends on whether the 
knife is in the hands of a surgeon, an assassin, 
an executioner or a man acting in self-defense. 
It will not do to assert that the strike, itself, dis- 
sociated from all motives and purposes, is the 
entire menacing problem. 

Under present conditions, the workers are 
compelled to hold the strike weapon for use in 
their own self-defense, for the protection of 
their very lives. With it they may match, to 
some degree, the economic power of their em- 
ployers. But it is possible to place in their 
hands and in that of their employers, another 
and better weapon, the sword of reason, by 
which both may appeal for final judgment, di- 
rect to the public conscience. 

Only when there is such a court of appeal, an 
organization of all the people, associated to- 
gether in a common assembly for the discussion 
and decision of every industrial problem, can 
the strike be prohibited with justice. Only 
when equal rights and privileges are assured 
to men, as neighbors and citizens, have we any 
right to appeal to the duty of equal obligations. 
The two must go hand in hand. 

The claim of labor to the right to strike is 
based on the fact that it is the final means of 
enforcing justice from an autocratic control of 
industry. When autocracy is overthrown by 



262 The Community Capitol. 

democracy, that just and proper reason disap- 
pears. What is now a right, will become only a 
claim for a class privilege to injure the public, 
once the communities of America are organized 
for effective action. 

One of the outstanding features of the rail- 
road strike in April, 1920, was the appearance 
of volunteer workers who undertook to man the 
trains. In Kansas, the governor called for such 
volunteers, when the miners went on strike. 

Out of these sporadic instances of the use of 
amateur strike-breakers has come a demand 
from certain quarters for an industrial militia, 
to be composed of volunteers, ready at all times 
to take the place of workers who go on strike. 

It should require little intelligence to see how 
vicious such a program would be, under present 
conditions, even if it could possibly be made ef- 
fective. If it were to be of any service at all, 
this industrial militia would necessarily be com- 
manded by a few men, generals of the army, 
whose desire would be solely to cripple labor, 
regardless of the justice of its cause. There 
have been many instances where the regular 
militia of a state, controlled by sinister inter- 
ests, have slaughtered men and women with 
horrible brutality. An irresponsible organiza- 
tion like the * industrial militia,'^ commanded 
by men bent on sending the workers back to 



The One Big Union — America. 263 

service, beaten, cowed and submissive, would be 
much more terrible. 

The comments of certain metropolitan news- 
papers that this movement is a * ^ renewed proof 
of Americanism" are arrant nonsense. It is 
simply an added fagot on the fire of class con- 
sciousness, which is the very opposite of Ameri- 
canism. It is not at all a case of the public 
organizing to meet the strike peril but is simply 
another cartridge for the gun of autocratic 
capital. 

There will indeed be justice in a rallying of 
volunteer workers to man essential industries, 
where the organized public has weighed the is- 
sues involved, has understood the purposes of 
the groups in conflict and has made decision. 
Then if labor should turn traitor to the public 
will, patriotic Americans would have every right 
to deal with the strikers as ^^ outlaws." 

The One Big Union of Amekica. 

We do not need any ^^ Middle Class'' unions, 
as projected in several cities. We need no more 
group organizations and class associations of 
any kind. We need the One Big Union of 
America, not the One Big Union of Syndicalism, 
whose program is a defiant challenge to democ- 
racy. The organized community is a union 
strong enough to see that all classes are treated 



264 The Community Capitol. 

fairly, squarely, justly and righteously. With 
the community having power, through all- 
inclusive organization, the problem is solved, 
for then the circle is complete. No class can 
profit from another class, without injury to the 
community. The community, properly organ- 
ized, can defend itself against the exactions of 
either capital and labor, or both. It can and 
will say to both of these groups, which are in- 
cluded in itself, ^^We will have neither the 
autocracy of Bourbonism or Bolshevism, nor 
the limited monarchy of final power in the hands 
of united capital and labor. We will see that 
justice is done both groups, but we propose to 
see that America is run, industrially and po- 
litically, by the whole American people. ' ' 

In a brochure, recently issued, a writer on in- 
dustrial questions classifies the workers, who, 
in his opinion, have the right to strike and those 
who do not possess such a right. He states that 
all useful, commercial workers, either handling 
materials, or marketing personality, have the 
right to strike. 

The others he classifies as workers who have 
chosen to serve humanity rather than self. In 
this class he includes the upholders of right con- 
duct between ourselves and our neighbors, such 
as ministers, judges, officials of government, 
soldiers, sailors and policemen : those who have 



The One Big Union — America. 265 

chosen to promote and direct, through asso- 
ciated effort, the uplift of individuals, commu- 
nity or state : those who have taken up the duty 
of teaching: those who work for an ideal or a 
cause: those who advise and counsel men and 
women as to vocational aptitude. 

After a study of such classification, immedi- 
ately the query comes, by what right is any 
good American citizen excluded from these lat- 
ter classes? Has not every real American, 
regardless of his daily occupation, a place in 
one of them! 

If Americans meet as neighbors and friends 
in community association, to cooperate for the 
common good, no occupational line can separate 
individuals who are earnestly striving to serve 
humanity, to uphold right conduct, to uplift the 
community and state, to promote the community 
health, to be teachers and learners, going to 
school to each other, to give counsel in choosing 
occupations and to work for the greatest ideal 
and cause in the world — democracy. 

When the community emerges as an all- 
inclusive organization of Americans, with every 
individual possessing the sense of membership, 
there need be no industrial war, for the com- 
munity will not use the strike or lockout against 
itself. 

There is only one rightful authority to enforce 



266 The Community Capitol. 

compulsory arbitration. It is the community 
directly concerned, which, in its organized 
assembly, has heard and weighed all the facts 
on which to force the getting together of 
rival forces on a just basis. Only with such 
backing has an arbitration board the right to 
order employers to operate and employes to 
work under explicit directions. For it is the 
community which has a vital interest in weigh- 
ing the record of profits and losses from the 
employers' books and also in maintaining a liv- 
ing standard, consistent with health, comfort 
and wholesome development. 
^ If the policy of real home rule is adopted in our 
industrial relations, reason and justice will take 
the place of passion and prejudice. Such an 
outcome may mean disaster to the professional 
''labor agitator" and ^4abor baiter, '^ but per- 
haps it would drive them both to contact with 
honest work, which would be a benefit to all con- 
cerned. 

The rise in the cost of living and excessive 
profits in food and other necessaries is pointed 
out as a potent cause of industrial unrest. It is 
true that many recent strikes have been, in es- 
sence, revolts against high prices. The ruinous 
wastes and excessive costs of the present system 
of food distribution the primary cause of the 
high prices, may be eliminated everywhere as 



The One Big Union — America. 267 

they have been in many places, by organized 
communities of producers and consumers, deal- 
ing directly through the postal service, the 
greatest distributing system in the world. 

Inequality in readjustment of wage schedules 
under new conditions and excessive hours of 
work, are mentioned in the report. Bridgeport, 
Connecticut, met and solved these maladjust- 
ments by the simple process of orderly discus- 
sion and intelligent decision in the public school 
buildings of the city. The same success may be 
attained through the same methods in any 
American community. 

The Industrial Conference report declares 
that the belief on the part of the workers that 
free speech is restricted is one of the outstand- 
ing causes of industrial strife. 

It is true that in many parts of the country, 
official action has been taken to prevent the 
gathering of workers in public meeting places. 
The authority claimed for such action is that 
contained in laws which place the responsibility 
of preserving public peace and order upon 
mayors, sheriffs and other officials. It is al- 
ways maintained, in such cases, that assemblies 
of workers, during the stress of labor unrest, 
have a tendency to disturb the peace by inciting 
men to violence. 



268 The Community Capitol. 

Stkiking at the Eights of Fkee Speech. 

The results of official determination to pro- 
hibit absolutely such meetings, are always bit- 
terness and added hostility on the part of the 
workers. In July, 1920, the steel workers of 
Western Pennsylvania, in convention assem- 
bled, unanimously adopted resolutions which 
bitterly denounced the mayors of Duquesne, 
McKeesport and other cities for preventing their 
meetings, and declared that their action was an 
*^ outrage upon democratic institutions and the 
rights of freemen, under the Constitution, and 
a dastardly, despotic, usurpation of civil power 
worthy only of a Kaiser or a Czar of the old 
regime in Eussia.^' 

In these resolutions was the expression of 
most bitter feeling, based on the belief that the 
constitutional rights of every American were 
grossly violated. The action of the mayors in 
arresting and fining speakers and spectators at 
these meetings, was appealed to the courts of 
Allegheny county. The judge upheld the arrest 
and punishment of the speakers and organizers 
and ruled that since the law under which the 
arrests were made gave the mayor authority to 
prohibit parades, assemblies or meetings, which 
would be detrimental to the public interest, he 
was justified in using his own judgment as to 
the possible injury to the public. 



The One Big Union — America. 269 

If this decision squares with American prin- 
ciples, it mnst inevitably follow that it was 
solely because it was a group or section of the 
public, which desired to assemble, that justified 
officials in prohibiting such meeting as detri- 
mental to the public interest. Certainly, if the 
entire public gathered in assembly for its own 
good, it cannot be held that it would act in a 
manner injurious to itself. 

The constitutional rights of free speech and 
free assembly apply to the people as a whole. 
It is the rights of individuals, not of groups or 
classes, that are guaranteed. Still, the fact re- 
mains that there must be found a place and a 
method for free and frank discussion of all labor 
problems by those whose livelihood is involved. 

Such a place is the public school building, 
owned by all the people, and such a method is 
the right to meet as a group, through permis- 
sion of the community organization, which 
represents the public interest. When the neigh- 
borhood meets in common assembly, both em- 
ployers and employes have a chance to present 
their plans, formulated in separate meetings, 
before the bar of public opinion. Neither side 
has a right to ask more than such an oppor- 
tunity. 

If the neighborhoods of Duquesne had been 
democratically organized in their own school 



270 The Community Capitol. 

buildings, for orderly, all-sided, discussion, no 
official could have interfered with their meet- 
ings. The steel workers are neighbors in the 
community : so are the managers and superinten- 
tendents of the steel plants. Meeting together as 
neighbors, instead of members of hostile groups, 
there would have come that understanding, with- 
out which no final settlement is possible. 

Nothing but the closest, severest analysis will 
finally prevail in an organized and informed 
community. The community alone has the all- 
sided interest to assure recognition of the 
mutual rights of the opposing sides and the 
equities involved in industrial disputes. Only 
when all sides are represented and meeting on 
a common level can all the facts be known. Lin- 
coln said, ^^The man who will not investigate 
both sides, is dishonest. ^' It is just as true that 
the man who cannot investigate both sides is 
helpless. 

When wage earners and the public are un- 
informed, their judgment is biased by prejudice. 
But many an incipient strike has been prevented 
by managers, who had the good sense to open 
the books and frankly explain the exact facts in 
the establishment. 

Suppressed with a strong hand, industrial 
facts become industrial dynamite. In Russia 
the people were kept in ignorance and finally the 



The One Big Union — America. 271 

pent up resentment of the people burst its bonds 
and the great empire was hurled into the arms 
of Bolshevism. Suddenly realizing their 
wrongs, but not knowing how to remedy them, 
the people started out to avenge them, with red 
revolution as the result and again the absolute 
mastery of the few. 

No such spirit can be nursed to life in Amer- 
ica if the people know the truth and have in 
their own hands the power to correct injustice. 
With such knowledge and with such power, pos- 
sible with organization of the community, 
American citizenship may end the universal 
practice of shifting responsibility for industrial 
evils and begin constructive action. 

Every industrial community in America 
should know the facts concerning its industries. 
Everybody may know now what coal miners re- 
ceive, for the Department of Labor publishes 
the figures in full detail. No one knows what 
the coal operators make. When former Secre- 
tary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo pro- 
posed that the government produce the income 
tax returns as a basis for determining whether 
the operators could pay an increased wage to 
the miners, without adding to the cost of coal, 
there was instant and indignant oulcry from the 
operators. 

So, too, when the miners were endeavoring to 



272 The Community Capitol. 

bring before the Anthracite Coal Commission, 
in August, 1920, the facts concerning mining 
profits, the head of one of the largest mining 
corporations made vigorous protest, saying, 
* ' The operators are not trying their case before 
the public. The public is not interested in these 
matters. This is a matter for the commission, 
not a matter for spreading in the newspapers." 
These leaders in industry are wrong. The 
public is vitally interested in the profits made. 
Business in this country must accustom itself 
to the free air of publicity rather than to con- 
tinue in the atmosphere of secrecy and stealth. 
The attempt to hide the methods by which any 
necessary commodity is supplied to the people 
is ample reason why those methods should be 
fully disclosed. We do not need any more 
visionary schemes and notions in the solution of 
industrial problems but we do need the facts 
and figures. The common schools have taught 
us to add and to subtract and in those same 
common school buildings we may use that knowl- 
edge for the common good. Organized public 
sentiment, with full knowledge of the facts, can 
solve the problems of the coal industry and all 
other industries in America, in fairness to both 
producers and investors. But the people must 
know the truth if the truth is to make them free. 



The One Big Union — America. 273 

Big Business and Public Interest. 

The public must know the profits made by in- 
dustry and also who receives the dividends. 
Not a single industrial concern could exist in 
America, much less make profits, without the 
great American community. The public owes 
no greater obligation to the man who invests his 
capital than the investor owes the public for the 
opportunity to invest. The people buy the 
product; they have a right to know what that 
product costs to make and how much profit is 
received from the operation. 

In the distribution of goods and profits lies 
the field for constructive action, rather than in 
production. Former Secretary Lauck of the 
War Labor Board has testified that 276,000,000 
pairs of shoes are ample for the annual needs 
of America, while we are producing 292,000,000 
pairs. He states that 4,000,000 square yards of 
woolen cloth will meet American needs, while 
our annual production is 7,600,000 square yards. 
^^ Without exception in the production of every 
article of food there is sufficient, if distributed, ^ ' 
says Mr. Lauck, ^Ho more than satisfy all hu- 
man needs.'' 

Whether this former government expert is 
right or wrong, the people have the right to 
know the truth. The day that the people, organ- 
ized in their community houses, know the truth 

18 



274 The Community Capitol. 

of industrial conditions, will be the day of indus- 
trial freedom in America. Then the local com- 
munities will take from the shoulders of govern- 
ment some of the things it has attempted but 
failed to do. Eesponsible participation will 
teach us all that the successful and just execu- 
tive is more worthy than the shiftless dema- 
gogue and that if the man at the lathe has his 
backache, the man at the desk has his headache. 
It will teach us, too, that men are greater than 
machines, the things of manhood more valuable 
than the things of money. It will be the assem- 
bly of the people, guaranteed by the Constitu- 
tion, the antidote to the repression which is the 
seed of revolution. 

The Industrial Conference in its report 
states that the intermittency of employment and 
fear of unemployment are direct causes of in- 
dustrial strife. It phrases it in this way : 

^ ^ The human side of the problem is even more 
important than the economic aspects. The fear 
of unemployment is the permanent, pervading 
background for a large number of our popula- 
tion. The fact of unemployment is a br^eeder 
of discontent, resentment and bitterness.'* 

It is true that there are few greater terrors 
to the worker than being out of work. He fears 
it worse than hell itself. It spells privation and 
poverty for himself and his family. It strikes 



The One Big Union — America. 275 

at his very life. Some method must be found 
for coping with this evil if we are ever to have 
peace in industry. 

Unemployment is primarily a local problem. 
The knowledge of the men who want work and 
the men who want workers is common in the 
local community. There should be an employ- 
ment clearing house, under national control, 
with cooperative relations between the federal 
and state governments, so that a labor surplus 
in any section can be shifted to meet a labor 
shortage anywhere else. However, the attempt 
to open expensive agencies in a vast number of 
localities, to meet the unemployment problem is 
an inexcusable waste of money. 

The community secretary is the logical local 
employment agent. A worker, by going to the 
school house in his own neighborhood would be 
immediately connected with the whole labor 
market of city, state and nation. Such a plan 
would do away with the tramping of city streets, 
in a vain search for a job, the expenditure of 
money for car fares or as fees to private agen- 
cies. 

Under a system of organized communities, 
every community would be a local employment 
agency, the point of contact for a nation-wide 
clearing house. With very little expense, it 
would touch every worker and employer in the 



276 The Community Capitol. 

land and finally solve the problem of getting the 
manless job and the jobless man together. 

Hand in hand with this program would go the 
vocational classes in the community center, 
where young men and young women could be 
taught those occupations for which there is 
need. Individual aptitude might be given thor- 
ough training and then by means of the employ- 
ment center facilities, connected with appropri- 
ate opportunities. 

One of the master engineers of America said : 

^ ' The American, as an individual, is the most 
efficient man in the world, but other nations have 
beaten us in teamwork and, unless we learn it in 
the next generation, we will be hopelessly beaten 
in the world of industry. ' ' 

There is need for teamwork in stopping one of 
the most woeful wastes in industry, the loss of 
working days, with all the terrors that follow in 
its train. That teamwork can be found in the 
cooperation of Americans in their communities, 
with every worker in touch with his home head- 
quarters, which in turn is linked up with the 
state and national labor exchanges. 

Every cause of industrial unrest specified by 
the Industrial Conference can be boiled down 
to one — cut-throat competition. The remedy is 
found in its opposite — neighborly cooperation. 

Once the common interest is discovered 



The One Big Union — America. 277 

through common counsel, it will be seen that the 
cost of these evils in our industrial system, 
comes back at last to the community. There is 
not an idea of industrial welfare which is not 
linked up with the success of the cooperation of 
the people in their local communities. 

Cooperation as Foundation of Democracy. 

Such cooperation is democracy and democracy 
is not a scheme for the redistribution of wealth. 
It is a plan of social progress under which that 
industrial system may be established which is in 
harmony with the collective conscience of the 
nation. We have seen that our political system 
has made government the prey of the organized 
few. The people have not been organized and 
with all their strength have been helpless before 
close knit groups intent upon seizing power for 
selfish advancement. 

Just in proportion to that usurpation of gov- 
ernmental power, the benefits of industrial 
progress have been monopolized by the few. In 
1850 the wealth annually created was distrib- 
uted one-fourth to labor and three-fourths to 
capital. In 1910 the division was less than one- 
fifth to labor and four-fifths to capital. Pro- 
fessor Ferrari, the great historian, declares that 
the concentration of wealth in America during 
those sixty years has been greater both in rate 



278 The Community Capitol. 

of increase and in relation of increase to the 
wealth of the country and the population than 
in any other country in the world's history. 

Many beneficiaries and guardians of the sys- 
tem that distributed the annual income of Amer- 
ica in such unjust proportions, admit the 
dangers and cry aloud for a change. But bene- 
ficiaries cannot, as a class be expected to force 
money from their own pockets. The victims as 
a class, cannot, for their agitation is defined as 
a class war and discredited from the start. 

It can be done by common understanding and 
common agreement. Thus this basic problem 
can be decided, safely and sanely, not as an end, 
but as a means to the end — establishment of that 
social order which will best serve America. 
Through organized fellowship of Americans 
necessary changes in the organization of indus- 
try will be made so that all individuals will have 
a fair chance in life and success will become the 
reward of merit. 

Democracy, which is the people getting to- 
gether for happiness, will mean the conserva- 
tion of human resources, and the carnage of 
peace, which now means more workers killed 
every year than died in battle in our war with 
Germany, will be made impossible. 

It will mean the higher appraisement of labor, 
not because of demands enforced by might, but 



The One Big Union — America. 279 

through recognition that labor is human flesh 
and blood and brain and brawn, to be respected 
for its worth and rewarded for its loyalty, as 
justice demands. 

It will mean the prevention of industrial wars, 
which is better than their cure. The old time, 
direct contact between employer and employe is 
only possible to-day through the medium of the 
community itself and there the old, fraternal 
feeling may be rediscovered and renewed to the 
benefit of all. 

It will mean the realization of the importance 
of conditions of life in the neighborhood. The 
bad housing and unsanitary, dangerous dwell- 
ings where workers are crowded and herded, 
will be seen as a community liability, to be 
avoided for the common good. 

It will mean that the value of home ownership 
will be clearly seen. The worker who does not 
stay long enough on a job, or in a town, to make 
friends, to get a neighborhood contact, may 
never come down with the disease of disloyalty 
and sedition, but he is like the typhoid carrier, 
he may affect whole groups of other men. Home 
ownership is a stabilizer of character, which 
only utter disorganization of the American citi- 
zenship would have so long neglected. The 
community reaps abundant dividends in the 
form of good will, industry, cooperation and 



280 The Community Capitol. 

good citizenship. The unity of France in the 
Great War was one of the marvels of the age. 
It was due to the fact that every Frenchman 
owned his little plot of ground and was truly 
fighting for hearth and home. More than that, 
in every village in France, the people gathered 
regularly in their school buildings to receive re- 
ports from the central government. There 
comradeship divided sorrow when evil news 
came and it also multiplied joy when good tid- 
ings were received. 

Here in America we may secure that unity in 
the same fashion. Out of the fraternity of com- 
munity association will come assurance that the 
community be composed, not of tenants, but of 
home owners. Through the postal savings sys- 
tem, broadened to meet the needs, the savings 
of the community may be used to assist honest 
and energetic workers to secure the homes they 
long for, but for which their financial resources 
are inadequate. 

I am not describing any automatic device for 
securing all the blessings of industrial justice 
and peace for ourselves and our posterity. It 
is rather the plan which requires from each one 
of us the largest amount of faithful service. 
Democracy rests, not upon the attitude of re- 
ceiving gifts, not upon an irresponsible sense 



The One Big Union — America. 281 

of liberty to do as one pleases, but upon unceas- 
ing activity in behalf of the common good. 

Still, no vocation can be more sacred and no 
reward more satisfying than that of partner- 
ship in a community of friendly men and women, 
using the power of a citizen, for the building of 
a greater, better, more just America. Few citi- 
zens will shirk that responsibility and fail to 
enjoy that privilege, once the opportunity is 
given. Employers will catch the spirit of 
brotherhood in the challenge of the common wel- 
fare, just as many of them did in time of war. 
When the Titanic went down, the Strausses and 
the Vanderbilts stepped aside to allow the poor 
immigrant mothers and children to pass down 
to the boats in safety. Dealing with that actual, 
present life stream as it flows through the hearts 
of human kind, the community spirit will enable 
a vast majority of those who represent the capi- 
tal of America, to realize that men can and 
should live joyfully and fraternally as they 
progress toward better economic conditions. 

Nor will labor fail in the testing. Blind as 
have been some of its demands, because of its 
one-sided interest in conflict time, there is at the 
heart of all the labor unrest in this country, a 
cry for a chance to develop common feelings, 
common sympathy and common aspirations. 
The workers desire their rightful place in the 



282 The Community Capitol. 

community and given that, they will help to but- 
tress the foundations of democracy. 

The old order went down in death and de- 
struction in the storm of the Great War. It 
was an order where toil for many honest work- 
ers, men and women, secured nothing better 
than poverty, pain and wretchedness. Millions 
of gallant Americans have fought for the new 
world and they will not be betrayed. The world 
is going to be new again. It is going to be 
worth something to be born a human being. 
Some who have been chattels shall be men. 
Others who have been upholders of autocracy 
shall be defenders of democracy. In the old 
days they shouted, ^^The king is dead, long live 
the king.'' In this new day, we say, 'The 
people are dead, dead on a thousand battlefields, 
dead in the streets of cities, dead, from Chateau 
Thierry to the Argonne, dead for democracy 
and the rights of common men. The people are 
dead : long live the people. ' ' 

In the common meeting place of the neigh- 
bors, assembled to deal with every problem 
affecting the general welfare, there will be 
wrought out in America, democracy, sufficient 
remedy for every industrial problem; where 
employer and employes may stand on common 
ground with all the members of the community, 
in the One Big Union— America. 



Part VI 

Making Strangers Members of 
America 



MAKING STEANGEES MEMBEES OF 
AMEEICA. 

Of our one hundred and five million souls, 
fifteen millions are of foreign birth and twenty 
millions more are of foreign or mixed parent- 
age. Ten per cent, of our adult population can- 
not read the laws they are presumed to know 
and to obey. Out of the first two million men 
drafted in the Great War to ''make the world 
safe for democracy, ' ' an astounding proportion 
could not read their orders or understand them 
when they were delivered. 

It was in the light of the fires of war that the 
nation came to see the importance of American- 
ization. In facing the challenge of autocracy, 
with all the resources of America pledged to its 
overthrow, it was suddenly discovered that the 
United States was almost in the position in 
which the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary 
had found itself long ago, with its unassimilated 
populations and separate nationalities. 

The melting pot had failed to function, if in 
fact it had ever existed. There had been no 
real fusing of the various elements in the body 

285 



286 The Community Capitol. 

politic into one ingot of united purpose. In- 
stead there were stones and dross, the scum of 
the melting pot. There were millions of people 
in America still thinking as Germans, or Ital- 
ians, or Slavs, or Poles — not as Americans. 

In many communities there were colonies of 
folks from foreign lands, who retained their 
national language, customs and habits, deliber- 
ately excluding everything American while they 
cherished everything foreign. 

In one Pittsburgh suburb, an investigation 
disclosed that in a single district, comprising 
only six city blocks, there were 2600 residents, 
of whom only twelve were American citizens. 
Many of these persons had been in this country 
more than twenty years but they frankly stated 
that they had no intention of becoming Ameri- 
can citizens. 

In marshalling America's resources for the 
war, it was found that the message had to be 
carried in many different languages to these 
peoples, who were in America, but not of 
America. The plans of the draft law, liberty 
loans, food and fuel regulations, Eed Cross and 
other activities had to be conveyed in other 
tongues than that of America. 

It was discovered, also, when Uncle Sam 
called for soldiers to wage the battles of the 
republic, that hardly ten per cent, of the immi- 



Making Strangers Members of America. 287 

grants arriving here within the previous ten 
years had declared their intention of becoming 
American citizens. As aliens, these residents, 
in many instances, gave no answering response 
to the call for military service. Several thou- 
sand of those who had taken out the first papers 
of citizenship, cancelled them at once so that 
they might revert to the status of aliens and 
thus escape military duty. 

These alien slackers were sinister signs to 
every mother who bade her boy ^* good-bye' ' 
with tears. They set on fire the indignation of 
every father who bravely told his own lads to 
fight for the old flag. They were out of danger 
while American boys faced the hell at Chateau 
Thierry and fell dying in Argonne Wood. 

The menace of such a situation must be evi- 
dent. The presence of an un-Americanized mass 
of permanent residents, who deliberately classi- 
fy themselves as outsiders, poisons the streams 
of American action ; it carries with it the seeds 
of destruction, whether in war or in peace. And 
in all human history, no country ever contained 
so many aliens within its limits as does Amer- 
ica to-day. 

Still, there were many thousands of aliens 
who responded gallantly to the call for service 
during the war. They went to the training camps 
and there it was found that they could not serve 



288 The Community Capitol. 

effectively because they did not understand tlie 
language of America. In one cantonment alone, 
it was found necessary to converse with these 
men through interpreters in forty different lan- 
guages. Officers found that great bodies of 
men, who were physically fit and needed for the 
fighting lines in Flanders, where world civiliza- 
tion hung in the balance, could not be made into 
soldiers until they were taught to spe? i and 
read the American language. 

The Un-Amekican Elements in Amektca. 

Not only aliens, but many native bori, were 
found to be illiterate, and in need of American- 
ization. Of the first 1,552,256 men who were 
examined for military service, 386,196 were un- 
able to read newspapers or to write letters 
home. The average illiteracy in all camps was 
24.9%. In other words, one out of every four 
physically fit young men called to serve in the 
battle line, could not read a printed order or 
write a single word. 

These facts, discovered in war time, made this 
question of Americanization a very live issue, 
where it had formerly been concealed. We 
should have known, for the census of 1910 
showed 4,611,000 illiterates, twenty years of age 
and over, in the United States. Besides there 
were 3,500,000 who could not speak or read the 



Making Strangers Members of America. 289 

English language. It must be remembered, too, 
that the census enumerator asks only the ques- 
tion, ^^Can you read and write?" and accepts 
the answer given. Doubtless many illiterates 
disclaim their inability and this, together with 
the influx of 6,100,000 immigrants in the decade 
since 1910, make it more than probable that 
to-day at least one out of every ten adults in 
this country cannot read or write the language 
of America. 

That means that there are un-American ele- 
ments in America to-day amounting to more 
than the entire population west of the Missis- 
sippi in 1910. Ten millions of our people can 
not read the Declaration of Independence, the 
Constitution, nor any law of Congress, state 
legislature or city council. 

It is impossible to magnify the dangers of 
this situation. If America is to endure it must 
be made a nation in fact as well as in name. 
The complete Americanization of America is 
not a political issue, nor is it a debatable ques- 
tion. The persons taken into America are like 
the food taken into the human body; either it 
is assimilated and becomes bone and flesh and 
blood and sinew, or it becomes poison. As a 
matter of imperative necessity, the immigrant 
population must become a part of the nation. 
One hundred and five millions of us must stand 

19 



290 The Community Capitol. 

together and act together and that means speak- 
ing and thinking without a foreign accent. 

How shall we meet this colossal task? Again 
we come back to the fundamental need in Amer- 
ica — unity — if we are to make of America a 
home rather than a polyglot boarding house. 

We have been trying to solve this great na- 
tional problem in piece-meal and by fractions, 
through group activities and volunteer agencies 
of a hundred kinds. Spasmodically and hys- 
terically we have sought to Americanize our 
alien groups with a club, between the long 
periods during which we have ostracized them 
with contempt and intolerance. 

One and the same result is accomplished by 
both methods. They make certain the perpetu- 
ation in our midst of foreigners, with foreign 
ideas, foreign sympathies, foreign customs. 
We cannot and we should not make over again 
all these varied peoples into one hard and fast 
mold. America needs the best qualities of these 
alien peoples to strengthen the original strain 
and to build a new and virile race, the Ameri- 
can. Americanization must be a double process, 
on one side the convictions of the native born 
that there is need of partnership in producing 
the America of to-morrow and on the other side 
the inducement of the peoples who come to join 
with us in the task and together produce the 



Making Strangers Members of America. 291 

America which is to be. Americanization is not 
an autocratic activity ; it is cooperative. When 
we force it upon the foreigner from above he 
rightly repudiates it, but when it is planned 
with him he welcomes the opportunity and re- 
sponds gladly. 

We must remember that the vast majority of 
these immigrants to our shores came here as to 
the land of equal chance. They came here to 
earn a living, to make a home and to live in the 
liberty of a democracy, free from the repression 
they had known. 

They did not enter the open gates of Amer- 
ica as enemies ; they came here to work and live 
the life of free men and women. They fled here 
from subjection and injustice, hoping for an 
opportunity to grow and develop under the flag 
of America. 

Americans, through their neglect, encouraged 
these newcomers to do the obvious and natural 
thing, to congregate in their foreign colonies 
with their fellow-countrymen, to retain their 
own ways, their language, their customs, their 
institutions, their habits of life. Americans 
made them herd in unsanitary tenements with 
only the pavements for their children's play- 
grounds. Americans left them to read the for- 
eign language press, because they could not 
read the language of America. 



292 The Community Capitol. 

Our treatment of the alien has been exactly 
the action which Whitman, the ' ' good gray poet 
of Democracy, '^ said was the greatest danger 
to any nation. That is, 

*^ Having certain portions set off from the 
rest by lines drawn, they not privileged as 
others, but degraded, humiliated, made of no 
account, unable to work in, if we may so term it 
and justify God His Divine aggregate — the 
people. This, I say, is what democracy is for, 
and this is what our America means and is 
doing. If not she means nothing more and is 
doing nothing more than any other land. ' ' 

If these newcomers have been disillusioned 
and have found in their Land of Promise, sub- 
jection and injustice and misunderstanding, 
ours is the fault as much as theirs. If they 
have huddled into colonies and been untouched 
by American influence, remaining as outsiders 
in the midst of the nation, we cannot escape our 
due responsibility. 

The melting pot has not been making Ameri- 
cans because Americans have not been in it. We 
filled it high with a jumble of antagonistic ele- 
ments and expected it to function. If Ameri- 
canism is to be fused into a white-hot steel ingot 
of noble purpose, Americans must be a part of 
the molten metal themselves. We ourselves 
must be Americans and Americanizers. 



Making Strangers Members of America. 293 

If right relations are to be established we 
must look upon these newcomers as ^^just 
folks'' who long for fellowship. At a meeting 
in Flint, Michigan, an alien was invited to speak. 
He said that his only criticism of Americans 
was that they do not seem to realize that the 
timidity and reserve and sometimes the bitter- 
ness of foreigners are due to the fact that they 
do not feel encouraged to come into contact with 
the Americans themselves. 

That is the task of the community. The 
neighborhood spirit alone can create in these 
strangers the spirit of America, that friendli- 
ness which is the soul of democracy. In the 
coming together of neighbors we can come to 
know these strangers. The word *^ hostile'' in 
the original Latin meant ^* stranger." Because 
we have not known these people from other 
lands we have treated them as enemies. Under- 
standing, in this as in every other relation, will 
bring agreement. It is true that 

If I knew you and you knew me, 
And each of us could clearly see, 
And with an inner sight divine 
The meaning of your heart and mine, 
I know that we should differ less. 
And clasp our hands in friendliness; 
Our thoughts would pleasantly agree, 
If I knew you and you knew me. 



294 The Community Capitol. 

The Neighbokhood, and the Weaving of 
A National Fabkic. 

The neighborhood is the place for acquaint- 
ance and for the weaving of all of us into the 
fabric of America. The center of the neigh- 
borhood, the common building of the people, is 
the public school house. Wickersham, in his 
^'History of Education'' says, ''As the people 
moved west over the mountains, intermingling 
socially and in business, out of common toils, 
common privations, common dangers, there nec- 
essarily came the common schools." 

To-day, those common schools, as assembly 
places for the people may be made the means of 
meeting common dangers, lessening common 
toils and privations. Through them we may 
Americanize the environment of these stranger- 
folk and make them indeed members of 
America. 

The task is too big for any group or class ; it 
is just big enough for the American people, 
working hand in hand. Only when the people 
are organized in all-inclusive neighborhood as- 
sociation, in their own community house, where 
every resident comes on equal terms, can there 
be a real sense of belonging to America, and the 
unity of common interest. Then the foreigner, 
from far away lands, may feel the hand grasp 
of friendship, the grip of the grand fraternity 



Making Strangers Members of America. 295 

of Americanism. The new citizen, as a member 
by right and the alien as an associate member 
may be shown the value of American citizenship 
and the joy of fellowship in the land they saw in 
their dreams. There the immigrant may see 
the making of America under his eyes and the 
new citizen may cast his equal vote in the as- 
sembly of his neighbors. 

There is no other way. The multiplicity of 
group organizations during the war, created 
confusion and left a sense of suspicion and dis- 
trust in the minds of many who longed to be 
united with America, but did not understand. 
Every one with experience in Liberty Loan 
drives, Red Cross compaigns and other special 
activities during the war period, knows that 
many foreigners were bludgeoned into contrib- 
uting for war loans and funds. 

At the same time amazing instances of sacri- 
fice and devotion were of common occurrence. 
The foreign-born men and women who really 
understood, poured out their savings with self- 
denying heroism not excelled by any native 
born. While there were alien enemies and alien 
slackers, there were also many of alien stock 
who stood firm and strong for America and their 
unfamiliar names were noted in every casualty 
list that came from Flanders fields, where men 
fought for the flag of America. 



296 The Community Capitol. 



n 



Why was one immigrant loyal and another 
disloyal! Why are some foreign-born resi- 
dents friendly to American ideals while others 
are hostile in spirit toward the country and its 
institutions ! 

The differences are explained by the circum- 
stances of their lives after they arrived in 
America. Those who were shunned during long 
years of peace as the plague, treated as out- 
casts and branded as ^^hunkies^' and ^Magoes'* 
and *^wops" and ^^Polacks,'' and were then 
suddenly assailed from every quarter with de- 
mands for help for Uncle Sam, rebelled at the 
methods of compulsion. When forced to sub- 
mit, by threats of violence, their enforced par- 
ticipation made them, not good Americans, but 
infected spots of anti-Americanism. 

On the other hand, those who in some measure 
had merged into the community and had felt the 
thrill of being part of America, came forward 
with a will, and in spite of the confusing de- 
mands, gave until it hurt. When they were 
shown even a little consideration and permitted 
to participate even a little in cooperative action, 
they answered with gratitude and repaid with 
loyalty. 

Therein lies the answer to the problem. Our 
efforts to control the foreigner have consisted 
largely of laws and regulations, of **don'ts." 



Making Strangers Members of America. 297 

We have perpetually told the foreigner the 
many things he cannot do. It is time now to 
plan the things he may do, to guide his energies 
and his abilities into channels that will help him 
and all of us. 

In the community assembly, the gathering of 
the folks from the corners to the center, is found 
the means of effective action. It furnishes the 
organization needed, for any kind of construc- 
tive action. 

America to-day has no registration of aliens 
and does not know who the foreigners are, 
where they are or how they live, although such 
information is the first essential in the problem. 

There is only one way to secure this informa- 
tion efficiently and that is in the local commu- 
nity. We do not want any bureaucratic agency 
to harass these potential Americans, but we do 
want direct contact with them. 

The community secretary, a responsible pub- 
lic servant, acting for all the community, is the 
logical official to act as registration agent. As a 
neighborhood agency, this action can be made 
the means of winning the support and confi- 
dence of immigrants, instead of making them 
the victims of irksome restrictions. 

At present the whole task is neglected. With 
community organization in the school buildings 
of America, every alien within our limits could 



298 The Community Capitol. 

easily be registered and given a card of identi- 
fication, setting forth essential facts as to na- 
tivity, length of residence in this country, em- 
ployment and references. Such a card, signed 
by the community secretary and with a provi- 
sion for checking in any new community into 
which the immigrant might move, would put an 
end to the present lack of knowledge. Eeports 
to proper governmental agencies by the com- 
munities' secretaries would give all the infor- 
mation needed for legislation and welfare work 
and at the same time would avoid repressive 
methods of bureaucratic control. 

Neither the Federal government nor the state 
governments can handle this vitally important 
work as well as the local communities. It is in 
fact a return to the census program of the 
United States from 1790 to 1880. During that 
period, the census enumerators in the local com- 
munities were required to post the information 
secured in a public place and to explain person- 
ally to the people the meaning of the figures in 
the statistics of the community. Since 1880, 
there has been a reversal of this sensible policy, 
and the local census-takers have been forbidden 
to make public the figures and facts gathered in 
their work. 

Surely, it is time to return to the older plan, 
at least as far as the question of aliens and 



Making Strangers Members op America. 299 

illiterates are concerned, so that the community 
may know the exact situation and take means 
to meet the needs shown. This can be done 
best by making the community secretary the 
agent of the people in compiling records and in 
placing them before the citizenship in regular 
assembly. 

Democracy and Illiteracy Inimical Forces. 

With this community census at hand, the task 
of making every resident the possessor of the 
ability to speak and read and write in the lan- 
guage of America, is ready for accomplishment. 
No man can develop an American soul, or a real 
regard for American institutions, unless he 
knows the language of Washington and Lincoln, 
Jefferson and Webster, Jackson and Eoosevelt. 
Democracy and illiteracy are hostile and irrec- 
oncilable forces. The man who cannot read or 
write is incapable of participating wisely in 
self-government, and every illiterate man or 
woman is a menace to American institutions. 

An uninformed democracy is not a democracy. 
An illiterate American is a contradiction in 
terms, such as free slavery. There must be but 
one language for the builders of America, else 
our efforts will fail as did those of the old time 
king, whose tower went uncompleted. 

The task of teaching every illiterate and non- 



300 The Community Capitol. 

English speaking adult to read and write in the 
language of America becomes vastly simplilfied 
when there is a community body, using the great 
educational plant of the nation. When the whole 
body of the neighborhood touches elbows on the 
upward march the ascent can be made surely 
and safely. In the school house, the citadel of 
democracy, may be wrought out the education 
of all of us, because there we may go to school 
to each other. 

In the community centers in Washington, 
D. C. aliens have been taught to read and write 
in a six weeks' course. Evening after evening, 
in the public school rooms, under kindly guard 
of the entire community, strains of strange blood 
fought for expression. They were unused to 
mental effort, and generally wearied in body, 
but they persevered in a spirit which was truly 
heroic. 

I have seen men and women from fourteen 
different countries of Europe, sitting together 
in community center classes, and working with 
undaunted determination to conquer the diffi- 
culties of the language of their adopted home. 

Their self-respect increased because they 
knew that they had had a part in the organiza- 
tion of the work and that their neighbors ex- 
pected them to make good. They were not being 
manipulated by a superior group of native-born, 



Making Strangers Members of America. 301 

wliich had enforced these classes upon them. 
Instead, it was a cooperative community ac- 
tivity, planned together for the benefit of all. 

Little wonder that one of the teachers in such 
a community center Americanization school 
said: 

"The men who came to my classes were 
honest, courageous workers. The women I 
came to admire for their invincible desire to 
learn. As I saw them toil at the tasks our chil- 
dren perform in school, and do it patiently and 
yet eagerly ; when I saw them growing in mental 
stature and their heartfelt appreciation of every 
helping hand extended to them by their neigh- 
bors, I felt a sure confidence in the future of 
America. ' ' 

The seemingly tremendous task of teaching 
ten million adults to speak, read and write in 
the language of America, resolves itself into a 
simple proposition when it is considered on the 
community basis. If they were equally distrib- 
uted, it would mean but fifty persons for each 
school district in America. Of course the prob- 
lem is largely confined to certain sections, but 
there is no community in which it can not be 
met, easily and effectively, if undertaken by all 
the neighborhood. 

Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, Superintendent of 
Schools in Eowan county, Kentucky, has pio- 



302 The Community Capitol. 

neered the way in methods and has proved that 
it is not so difficult a task to teach grown-ups to 
read and write as has generally been supposed. 
Mrs. Stewart was impressed with the need for 
action in her own county in 1911 and decided to 
open night schools for adults, on moonlight 
nights, in the public school houses. 

The teachers volunteered their services and 
the plan was explained in all the homes of the 
countryside. On the first evening, 1,200 men 
and women from 18 to 86 years of age, were 
enrolled. They came trooping over the hills 
and out of the hollows to receive their first les- 
sons in reading and writing. Mrs. Stewart 
says that they ^^had all the excuses and all the 
barriers which any people might offer, — high 
hills, bridgeless streams, rugged roads, weari- 
ness from the day's hard toil, the shame of be- 
ginning study late in life, and all the others: 
but they were not seeking excuses, they were 
sincerely and earnestly seeking knowledge. 
Their interest, their zeal and their enthusiasm, 
were wonderful to witness; it was truly an in- 
spiring sight to see these aged pupils bending 
over the desks which their children and grand- 
children occupied during the day. Their de- 
light in learning and their pride in achievement 
exceeded any joy that I have ever witnessed. ' ' 

Out of this splendid work has come a county 



Making Strangers Members of America. 303 

without illiterates, where formerly one out of 
every three adult residents was unable to read 
or write. Six weeks attendance at these moon- 
light schools enabled adult pupils to pass over 
the dark line of illiteracy into the class of those 
able to read and write. One man, aged 50, wrote 
a legible letter after seven nights attendance. 
One woman, aged 70, wrote a legible letter after 
eight nights study and a large number secured 
the Bible which Mrs. Stewart had offered to 
each one who would learn to write a letter dur- 
ing the first two weeks of the term. 

We have invested two billion dollars in school 
buildings and hundreds of millions in post 
offices, libraries and other public buildings. The 
illiterates and non-English speaking residents 
have a share in that expenditure, but they are 
not aware of it. When they become members 
of the community, able to read and write its 
language, their share in the vast national facili- 
ties provided for all, is validated. Now, they 
are disinherited, and the instruments of prog- 
ress and the institutions to promote democracy 
are as inaccessible to them as though they dwelt 
in Mars. We must certify their titles by mak- 
ing them literate members of the community. 

Then they widen the market for the adver- 
tised products of the land. They become cus- 
tomers for merchandise of which they knew 



304 The Community Capitol. 

nothing. They read newspapers and all the 
products of the printing trade. They become a 
new asset to America, both through their new 
tastes and their new purchasing power. If il- 
literacy reduces purchasing power by only fifty 
cents a day, the loss of $825,000,000 every year 
may be prevented by removing this handicap, 
Mrs. Stewart has proved that this barrier to 
development and progress may be broken down, 
when undertaken in proper spirit, at a cost of 
less than one dollar per person. 

The advantages are beyond the power of ex- 
pression in terms of dollars and cents. What 
value is there in pure food and drug laws to men 
and women who cannot read the labels? Of 
what use are costly safety first campaigns to 
those who cannot read the danger signals? 

The director of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, in 
a recent official report, states that the non-Eng- 
lish speaking workers in the coal regions are 
twice as liable to death and injury as those 
speaking English. This applies as well in the 
other industries where immigrant labor is used 
in large numbers. 

In the steel and iron industry 58% of the 
workers are foreign born. In the meat packing 
industry, 61% of all the workers came to this 
country from other lands. The official figures 
show that 62% of the workers in the bituminous 



Making Strangers Members of America. 305 

coal industry are foreign born, while 62% in the 
woolen mills, 69% in the cotton factories, 72 % 
in the clothing* trades, 59% in the furniture fac- 
tories, 67% in oil refining, and 85% in sugar 
factories are foreign-born workers. 

We have placed the heart of American essen- 
tial industries in the hands of men born in other 
lands. For our sake, as well as for theirs we 
must make them capable of measuring the 
values of American liberty and American insti- 
tutions and that is possible only through neigh- 
borly sympathy and understanding in the com- 
munities in which they live. We must make 
friends out of strangers and potential enemies. 

In Camp Meade, while the young soldiers of 
the republic were being trained, I saw many 
times the instructors teaching foreign-born lads 
the military code of commands. When the 
exercise reached the point of practicing for sen- 
try duty the teacher would call out, ^^Halt! 
Who goes there r' In a chorused cry from a 
dozen lads of different nationalities would come 
the answer, *' Friend. '* 

The Common Good Demands the Pass-Word 
^^Fkiends.'' 

If America will get together for the common 
good; making community organizations which 
shall include those who have come here with the 

20 



306 The Community Capitol. 

gleam of hope in their hearts, when she chal- 
lenges the purpose of her foreign-born folks, 
''Who goes there!'' the answer will come in one 
tongne and with one heart, ''Friends.'' 

We have crushed Prussianism over there. 
Now we must direct our awakened energies and 
aroused national spirit to the assimilation of all 
foreign elements into an enlightened American 
citizenship. The millions of Americans, who in 
the stress of war volunteered their services to 
the government and acted through mushroom 
organizations, can complete their work by con- 
centrating their energies on the one permanent 
organization that includes them all — that of the 
whole community in the community home. m^ 

Through such organization we may make sure 
that every mentally competent adult in all 
America will be able to read and write and speak 
the language of America, but we will also be 
assured of a vastly more important thing, the 
Americanization of the environment in which 
these immigrants live. 

Americanization is not complete when the im- 
migrant makes the English language his 
medium of speech and the illiterate is able to 
read and write the language of his country. 
Even the adoption of our manners and customs 
is but a small part of the process. It is folly to 
educate men and women and then force them 



Making Strangers Members of America. 30? 

back into the morass of exclusion, there to 
become agents of disruption and anti-Ameri- 
canism. Education may make only a more 
powerful scoundrel and a more dangerous 
traitor. 

Americanization means that the immigrant 
and the illiterate must be brought into harmony 
with our ideals and purposes and that also they 
must cooperate with us for their accomplish- 
ment. They must be given the inspiration of 
being partners in America, through conference 
and counsel with their neighbors. 

It is a wonderful sight to see, as I have seen, 
gathered into the common meeting place of the 
neighborhood, the public school, men and women 
from Montenegro, Croatia, Italy, Serbia, Rus- 
sia, Poland, Greece, Armenia, and a dozen 
more, joining hands with each other across all 
age-old lines of enmity and with native-born 
Americans, in one all-inclusive association. 

In such an assembly, a collective conscience is 
created through the freely expressed convic- 
tions of all. That conscience has power to save 
America from all the foes within or without her 
gates. 

It must come as a result of mutual counsel and 
there must be an opportunity for self-expres- 
sion on the part of these newcomers for that is 



308 The Community Capitol. 

the only way to assure their growth and de- 
velopment. 

There have been many Americans in these 
latter days who have turned their backs on the 
time-tried principles of America and have advo- 
cated the enactment of repressive legislation as 
to aliens and the suppression of free speech and 
assembly. Their argument that because a man 
comes from a foreign land, he must think it right 
to overthrow government and because he thinks 
it right, he will attempt it by dagger and dyna- 
mite, and then found on such conclusion a law 
for punishing him as though he had done it, is 
black wickedness and asinine folly. ^ 

Some have been sincere in that course, in * 
their fear of these aliens and in their decision 
that iron handed repression is necessary to save 
the republic from red revolution. Talking of 
American ideals they have become defenders of 
the most un-American tyranny. 

Their legislative measures are well termed 
''sedition^' bills for, if enacted into law, they 
would be the cause of more anarchy and sedi- 
tion than all the reds in the history of America. 
No intelligent citizen sympathizes for a moment 
with attempts to use violence to accomplish any 
purpose in America, but every intelligent citizen 
should recognize the fact that it is only when 



Making Strangers Members of America. 309 

ideas are imprisoned that they are apt to become 
high, explosives. 

You cannot make good Americans out of the 
peoples who come to our shores by placing 
manacles on their minds and padlocks on their 
lips. You can only make good Americans out 
of them by treating them as human beings, 
showing sympathy with their struggle to ad- 
vance and by giving them a place in the mem- 
bership of the nation. 

Discontent and Progress. 

Discontent is wholesome and natural in a 
democracy. Every forward step in America's 
history has been made by the unsatisfied and the 
progress in future will be made possible by those 
who refuse to accept present conditions com- 
placently. The Master Christian Himself said, 
^ ^I come, not to bring peace, but a sword. ' ' The 
Prince of Peace did not mean the sword of 
bloody war, but the sword of new ideas, with 
their certain disputes and debates, discussions 
and dissensions. Through these we see the 
path of progress, the way that leads upward to 
the light. 

True freedom ends where license begins and 
liberty does not mean the right to attempt by 
violence the overthrow of the American institu- 
tions which guard and insure liberty. We will 



310 The Community Capitol. 

prevent violence and lawlessness best, however, 
by clearing away alien misunderstanding of 
America in the sunlight of free discussion. 

The real fear from sedition in America comes 
from those who would substitute despotism for 
democracy, who would stifle honest discussion 
of the problems before America. 

To attempt to put padlocks on the lips or man- 
acles on the minds of men — that is sedition. 

To forge chains and build dungeons for hon- 
est thinkers — that is sedition. 

To prevent open discussion of vital problems 
and force criticism from the street corner to the 
cellar — that is sedition. 

To make new crimes of the expression of 
opinion, crimes which every lover of liberty 
must commit — that is sedition. ■ 

To bring contempt upon the government by 
saying that it will perish if the sunlight is turned 
upon it — that is sedition. 

To use brute force against the arguments of 
those who are trying honestly to better condi- 
tions — that is sedition. 

To take all rights from the minority save the 
right of armed revolution — that is sedition. 

To attempt to put a striped suit on an argu- 
ment and a fact in prison — that is sedition. 

To set loose a swarm of heresy-hunters and 



Making Strangers Members of America. 311 

blasphemy-seekers on the trail of free men — 
that is sedition. 

To take justice, liberty, equality, out of the 
meaning of Americanism and make the words 
only poor, withered meaningless sounds — that 
is sedition. 

America will not decide to deal with possible 
danger through the use of such un-American 
measures. Those radical leaders, whose gospel 
is violence and who talk of armed revolt, are 
only dangerous through their influence upon 
ignorant, illiterate, foreign-born folks, who have 
never had an opportunity to learn that Amer- 
ica is the answer to the despotism they experi- 
enced in their lands across the seas. Once these 
victims of misunderstanding have been made to 
feel the sense of really belonging to America, 
the power of these leaders with miasmic breath, 
who preach brotherhood and bring hatred, will 
disappear. 

In any case, the attempt to repress honest 
discussion in America is sheerest folly. As 
Edmund Vance Cook puts it : 

' ' Truth speaks no favor for her blade 

Upon the field with error. 
Nor are her converts ever made 

By force of threats and terror. 
You cannot salt the eagle's tail 

Nor limit thought's dominion. 
You cannot put ideas in jail 

You can't deport opinion.'^ 



312 The Community Capitol. 

It is not a just policy for the government to 
punish these strangers in America, without giv- 
ing them an opportunity to acquire a knowledge 
of the laws and their relative duties in America. 
That knowledge can be secured in the commu- 
nity and there those individuals who misunder- 
stand the whole structure of America may be 
taught to know the meaning of our great adven- 
ture in democracy. 

Judge Martin I. Wade, Federal Judge for the 
southern district of Iowa, who has had wide 
experience in dealing with men who have defied 
the government, has suggested that * ^ some man 
or body of men must start a movement, town- 
ship by township, ward by ward, to ascertain 
the individuals who are students of un-Ameri- 
can doctrines, anarchy, Bolshevism and trea- 
son.'' He states that ^Hhere must be sent into 
the homes of such people, every week, whole- 
some literature, answering every falsehood pre- 
sented in the treasonable literature they are 
now consuming. This American literature must 
be continuous and it must hold out the hand of 
fellowship and brotherhood. It must light the 
fire of hope in the heart. It must bring these 
souls now wandering in the darkness the great 
truth that this is now and always has been and 
always will be the land of opportunity for the 
humble as for the exalted. We must give to 



Making Strangers Members of America. 313 

these people the whole truth and the truth shall 
make them free. ' ' 

Every word that this experienced jurist says 
is true. But he suggests a mailing list of all 
students of rebel philosophies, secured by one 
man in each precinct and handled through a 
great central organization, the expenses to be 
met by private contributions. 

No such plan of handing down patriotic in- 
spiration from above will ever accomplish the 
desired result. The foreign-born are quick to 
sense and resent such high-minded condescen- 
sion. Every good American citizen must be an 
example in his own community, in the neighbor- 
hood assemblies, where neighbors come together 
to plan the common welfare. How much better 
than a mailing list is the hand-to-hand contact 
of friendly associates. How much better than 
literature is the free play of expression where 
neighbors sit together and upright, patriotic 
lives speak louder than words ? How much bet- 
ter than a great central organization, dictating 
policies, is the democratic organization of the 
community itself, meeting its own problems in 
its own way? 

In this community center, where the immi- 
grant's children go to school, is the real capitol 
of the people, where the immigrant himself may 
come to know America and the meaning of citi- 



314 The Community Capitol. 

zenship. Here should be the place where he 
formally enters American citizenship. 

At the community center celebration of Inde- 
pendence Day, 1919, in the school houses of 
Washington, the newly-made American citizens 
were the guests of honor as they passed from 
associate membership in the community to full- 
fledged citizen membership. They felt the 
loyalty of coordination not subordination, of 
fellows, not followers, as they took the pledge 
written by Secretary of Interior, Franklin K. 
Lane : 

**I enter into American citizenship with this 
pledge made before my fellow citizens ; that the 
rights and powers given me by this country shall 
be used that the people of America shall the 
more perfectly enjoy the benefits of free in- 
stitutions and increasingly present to the world 
the strength and security which come from a big 
regard for the rights of others. ^ ' 

A Ceremony of Citizenship. 

What finer inspiration than to receive citizen- 
ship in a rolled parchment, on a Fourth of July, 
in the presence of neighbors and friends 1 Such 
an event in every community on the day of 
America, would help to transform '^ hyphens'^ 
into Americans, potential Bolsheviks into 100% 



Making Strangers Members of America. 315 

Americans, to make sure that the red flag shall 
never be substituted for the Stars and Stripes. 

What a difference between occasions like this 
and the scenes which I have witnessed, where 
citizens were made at the rate of one a minute, 
and then shoved out recklessly, without the 
slightest attempt being made to give the new 
Americans the sense of membership. 

These aliens came with their only relation to 
government being manifested through the ward 
heeler and petty boss of their own nationality. 
They knew nothing of democracy, as it flows 
through the counsel of neighbors getting to- 
gether for the common welfare. 

The ward heelers answered the questions of 
the judge. ^^You know this manT' **Yes.'' 
' ^ How long r ' ^ ^ Three months. ' ^ * * Attached to 
the principles of this government?'' **He is." 
^ ^ Raise your right hand and swear allegiance to 
the government of the United States. " ^ * Next. ' ' 

Is it any wonder that these new Americans 
fail to understand America, and appreciate the 
priceless boon of its citizenship? The majesty 
of the court is not what is needed by these timid 
inquiring souls to make them love America. It 
is the fellowship of folks, their neighbors at 
home, in the school house which their children 
attend as the expression of America's kindly 
heart. 



316 The Community Capitol. 

We must make these strangers in a strange 
land feel at home as they share ^ ^ onr house ' ' by 
giving them a chance to work with us, in a 
nation which is still growing, still expanding. 
It is in making the ever-new America, which is 
always ahead, that real Americanization is pos- 
sible. Then when we ask the newcomer: 

"Tell me true, 
Are you Pole or Russian Jew, 
English, Scotch, Italian, Russian, 
Belgian, Spanish, Swiss, Moravian, 
Dutch, or Greek, or Scandinavian?" 

The answer comes back from a patriotic 

heart : 

''What I was is naught to me, 
In this land of liberty. 
In my soul as man to man 
I am just American." 

The community center becomes the natural 
place where all the public welfare projects of 
America are coordinated and where immigrant 
as well as native born has equal right to every 
benefit. 

Many times I have seen little children coming 
to private homes in rural districts, to be treated 
for minor defects by physicians sent out by the 
Eed Cross. The work was splendidly done, but 
just over the hills were little children of aliens, 
who were in sore need of such attention but who 



Making Strangers Members of America. 317 

knew nothing of the coming of the medical 
helpers. Even if they had known they would 
have hesitated to come to a private residence 
for such a purpose. 

Some of these forgotten little ones had defec- 
tive eyesight, decayed teeth, and other ailments, 
which the slightest attention would remedy, but 
which, if neglected, meant handicaps for life. 
The United States Public Health Service main- 
tains an expensive service, also, which would 
operate many times better if it had organized 
contact with organized communities in the pub- 
lic schools. 

It is a truism to say that the slums and for- 
eign districts in our cities are breeding grounds 
for many diseases. These districts perpetually 
threaten the health of all the rest of the com- 
munity, while they increase heavily the cost of 
maintaining hospitals and other institutions to 
deal with their results. No man or woman who 
lives in the community can safely say that it 
matters nothing what conditions exist in the 
poorer sections. Once started the contagious 
disease spreads to mansion as well as hovel. 

The slum is among the greatest extravagances 
of American life. Tuberculosis, typhoid fever 
and other preventable diseases cost this nation 
a billion and a half dollars every year. They 
can be prevented whenever Americans realize 



318 The Community Capitol. 



1 



fully that the nation is a neighborhood, and 
makes provision for the organization, without 
which nothing can be accomplished. 

Of course, the organized community is the 
point of beginning for many governmental pro- 
jects which have not measured up to expecta- 
tions or to needs. Here is the place for the em- 
ployment agency, where the jobless man and the 
manless job may be brought together. Here is 
the place for the postal station, linking up the 
federal government with the local community, 
and the community with every other community 
in the wide world. Here is the place where 
agricultural and industrial experts may bring 
their messages of instruction to the whole 
people, native born and foreign born alike. 

There should be a real census of America, not 
every ten years but every year and all the year. 
In every community headquarters there should 
be records of the residents, with careful atten- 
tion paid to those vital social and industrial sta- 
tistics, without which there can be no construc- 
tive approach to the solution of many problems. 
The accumulation of this data and making it 
understood in the community, would be of great 
value in Americanization, for it would enable 
the alien and stranger to see America in the 
making and to have a part in the task. f i 

Under the community association would be 



Making Strangers Members of America. 319 

conducted the playgrounds, where the foreign 
born boy and girl may learn more of American 
ideals than anywhere else. The rules of fair 
play and voluntary choice of leaders and games, 
are methods of practice in democracy, while the 
supervision of the community inspires the sense 
of obligation to all the people of the neighbor- 
hood. 

There are opportunities for community 
pageants, where the development of civilization 
older than our own may be shown and appre- 
ciated. Some one has well said ^^By applying 
the art of the theater to social drama, we shall 
help to convert the mentality of competition into 
the mentality of cooperation.'' And that after 
all is the foundation ideal of America, the 
world's greatest adventure in that democracy, 
which is a whole people getting together for 
happiness. There is no better method of incul- 
cating Americanism into the foreigner's mind 
than by having his help in celebrating patriotic 
festivals, by weaving into them the folk songs 
and dances which he has learned from long 
lines of ancestors on the other side of the globe. 

Community music will also bring all together 
in a common pleasure. Many of the European 
nations use music as a nationalizing force and 
when their people come here and do not find an 
opportunity for their wonted habits, they natur- 



320 The Community Capitol. 



I 



ally gather into exclusive societies, which per- 
petuate their language and customs and build 
barriers between them and the body of Ameri- 
can citizenship. Many foreigners have said 
that their chief reason for homesickness in 
America was the lack of the musical facilities 
which they had in the home lands. ,^ 

The community assembly, with its hand of 
friendship extended, will rally these lovers of 
music to chorus singing in the American lan- 
guage and will hasten their education for citi- 
zenship with an inspiration which could be 
kindled in no other method. It will mean unity 
of effort, response to leadership and enthusi- 
asm in a common pleasure. 

By neighborly counsel, the immigrants may 
be protected from the harpies that prey upon 
them and rob them at every opportunity. They 
invested their hard-earned savings in Liberty 
Bonds and then, in many instances, were 
fleeced by fraudulent promoters, who were gen- 
erally American citizens. Naturally, such 
frauds make them resentful and sullen. Neigh- 
borhood associations, by organized effort, can 
protect these easily-duped strangers and win 
their gratitude by showing them our best side, 
that which is most admirable in us, instead of 
our marauding worst. 

If we have made an opportunity for every im- 



Making Strangers Members of America. 321 

migrant to become a member of America, then 
we have a right to demand that he take a formal 
pledge of citizenship. Then we may say that 
if America is not good enough to hold his loyalty 
and allegiance, the sooner he leaves to make his 
living in the land which has his first affection 
and loyalty, the better for him and all the rest 
of us. 

We cannot tolerate the presence of a vast 
body of people who are not citizens. For the 
sake of America and her future, there must be 
a real stake in America, as the possession of 
those who make it their permanent home. 

That means a square deal for those whose 
friendship and help we need, and who need ours. 
They must be given a chance to become fellow 
workers in the making of America. There is no 
danger, if that is done, that the folks who came 
here from the peasant villages of Europe, will 
join any enemies of America. 

They are like orphan children, driven out by 
abusive relations. If America takes them as 
members of her great family, gives them the op- 
portunities to grow and develop in the same 
freedom possessed by her own children, think 
you that they will treacherously stab their bene- 
factor in the back in the time of testing? Such 
fiendish ingratitude and unpardonable treason 
is not in the heart of one immigrant out of a 

22 



322 The Community Capitol. 

hundred thousand. Given only the sense of 
being partners in America, a square deal and no 
favors, they will repay, as loyal and grateful 
comrades, with the service and sacrifice, which 
is also a part of true Americanism. 

The foreign born have helped to make our his- 
tory in the past. From every land on the globe 
we have drawn materials which will make us 
stronger for the future. They have something 
to give us just as we have something to give 
them. America is not perfect nor standing still 
and we should welcome every worthy contribu- 
tion, every bit of old world culture, every song 
and story out of thQ experience of ancient 
peoples. We do not want to develop only the 
selfish, greedy side of the immigrant, but we do 
want a real mingling of peoples and a real clash 
of cultures. We want the wisdom of other 
lands, the wisdom which is '^better than the 
merchandise of silver and the gain thereof 
than fine gold,'' to make it our own. We want 
all that is profitable for human kind made bone 
of our bone and flesh of our flesh. 

Such aims can only be accomplished through 
organized communities, meeting in the head- 
and heart quarters of the neighborhood — the 
public school. 



Making Strangers Members of America. 323 

The Beothekhood of Amekican Citizenship. 

Let us have this one acknowledged meeting 
place, an all-inclusive organization, where 
people meet as neighbors. Catholic, Protestant, 
Jew and Gentile ; where all our numberless na- 
tionalities may join hands in a community of 
devotion to American ideals and American 
citizenship. 

Let us show through this fellowship that 
American citizenship is a priceless privilege, 
carrying with it prestige and power; that it 
means intelligence and freedom, development of 
the intellect and cultivation of the heart; that 
it is a shield of protection for every possessor, 
guaranteeing all the rights of free men ; that it 
is a heritage from the humble boy in the Ken- 
tucky cabin who became the great Emancipator ; 
from the boy on the towpath, who came to the 
White House ; from the weakling lad whose in- 
ner strength made him the most vigorous and 
dynamic figure of our day ; from all the long line 
of great Americans who conquered all difficul- 
ties and greatly served America. 

Let us show through this fellowship that the 
selfish interests of persons, classes, creeds, races 
and parties must be subordinated to the welfare 
of the commonwealth; that the sovereign right 
of the ballot is in the hands of men and women 
who have a fair chance to discuss with their f el- 



324 The Community Capitol. 

low citizens, every problem that presses for 
solution ; that freedom must be safeguarded by 
law and that the end of freedom is fair play for 
all; that the majority of citizens may have 
exactly the same kind of government they pre- 
scribe at the ballot box ; and that the man who 
establishes a home in America is the founder of 
a royal house. 

Let us show through this fellowship that 
those who sleep at Valley Forge and Gettysburg 
and in Flanders Fields did not die in vain, when 
they paid the last full measure of devotion for 
Old Glory and the citizenship it guards and 
protects. 

With the optimism that recognizes the evils 
in present conditions but courageously plans, 
with the help of fellow citizens, to meet and 
overcome them, we may take the spirits of 
Babel, the stranger faces, the blood of many 
races, and make them into America, keeping the 
starry banner flying over a land of Americans, 
a land of equal opportunities and equal justice. 

In the gleam of Old Glory flying above the 
public school houses of America, by day, when 
the children of native born and foreign born 
master their lessons together; by night when 
adults native born and foreign bom go to 
school to each other in solving common prob- 
lems by mutual discussion and decision, we may 




Making Strangers Members of America. 325 

see the vision of a people embodying the vibrant 
spirit of youth, their eyes turned toward the 
rising dawn of brotherhood, accomplishing en- 
during works for the common weal, through a 
sovereignty wrought out of enlightened com- 
radeship and the united will to establish democ- 
racy in America. 

Oh beautiful for patriot's dream 

That sees beyond the years, 
Thine alabaster cities gleam, 

Undimmed by human tears. 
America, America, 
, , God send His grace on thee 

^ ' And crown thy good, with brotherhod, 
From sea to shining sea. 



THE END. 



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